The real start of fall in Philly: It’s fire barrel season on 9th Street

Technically, it’s been fall for a month. The leaves are turning. The temperature has dropped below 50. John’s Water Ice is closed until spring. Enormous skeletons and elaborate cobwebs cover the city. The election nears (spooky!). Down coats and sweaters have awoken from their closet slumber. And the Phillies’ season is over.

But none of those signifiers mark a true Philly fall like a trash can filled with fire in the Italian Market.

Vendors stoke the iconic fires with wood and leftover produce boxes to warm them when the air, and wind, start to bite. When it’s cold, you can often smell the market before you can see it. And then you see it: the blaring flames kissing cars that get too close to the vendors, the air rippling above.

As of Wednesday morning, the fire has returned to the market. There’s now one 55-gallon barrel roaring in front of Tortilleria San Roman on 9th and Christian. Yes, it’s going to be 80 this weekend, but it is mid-October. And as the mornings eventually get colder, the market will be peppered with even more cardboard flames.

It’s an annual tradition we almost lost.

In 1989, there were worries the fires would be “snuffed” due to fire hazard and air quality concerns. Mayor Wilson Goode wanted them gone, so the city’s managing director ordered the tradition be put to an end by Jan. 7, 1990.

The vendors said they’d obey, one telling the AP, “I was born here in 1928, and there’s always been fire cans on this street to keep warm. But times change. What can I do? What can I say?”

Another lamented, “It keeps me warm. It keeps my customers warm.”

And another, “What about fireplaces? Are they going to make people quit using them, too?”

The ban went into effect, but some vendors still lit their fires.

Councilmember Jim Tayoun wouldn’t let the ban stand. He contended that ending the tradition would put many vendors out of business. So later in 1990, the Council put forth a bill to allow the fires.

The mayor vetoed their proposal.

Then, according to the Daily News, the council responded: “In its last action before the year’s end, City Council yesterday handily overrode Mayor Goode’s veto of a bill permitting the decades-old Italian Market tradition of burning fires in barrels to keep warm during the winter.”

Later that week the Daily News stated, “Those who contend council does nothing important presumably are abashed.”

There is now an ordinance in Philadelphia that allows barrel fires — but only on 9th St between Wharton and Christian Streets and only from Oct. 1 to April 30.

On Wednesday morning, the temperature was in the 40s. A group of teens walked down 9th St, but paused around the fire for warmth before carrying on.

A woman, who walks up and down Carpenter for exercise every day, momentarily stopped next to the barrel.

It’s a fixture that will be there through fall and winter — until rowhouse window boxes show signs of life, coats return to their closets, and the Phillies are playing again.