The giant banner will not be set on fire this year

An awe-inspiring festival with burning banners brandished before your eyes

Morozaki's Sagicho Festival, or Fire Festival, is held as a prayer for health, a healthy haul of fish, and commercial prosperity with half-naked young men brandishing a flaming 10-meter-high banner. The men lower the banner, setting it on fire, lift it back up, and wave it around until even the bamboo pole is nothing more than ashes.
Mochi is thrown out as a means of dispelling evil, and if you roast the mochi on the burning tip of the banner's pole and eat it, superstition states you will be able to stave off summer colds and sickness.