IF you can't stand the heat, stay away from the Blackburn Lions Gala where the action will be getting very hot indeed!

East Lancashire Deaf Society supporters will be walking barefoot over a 20 foot long bed of burning wood for the charity, led by profoundly deaf president Doug Alker.

Mr Alker, who is leading the ambitious King's Court project for a business centre run entirely by deaf people, said he would never have dreamed of doing anything like it but he didn't want to ask anyone to do something he wouldn't do himself.

He said: "When people asked if ELDS was entering a team, everyone looked at me. There was no way that I could say no. So, here I go, over hot coals!

"It's for a good cause, it will give me great satisfaction when I do achieve it, and if other people have done it, why not me?"

Organiser Cassie Northam, 21, hopes more people will take up the challenge and said it was perfectly safe. She said: "I did it a couple of years ago at Lancaster University. It just felt like walking over concrete, although some people say it feels warm and others say it feels very cold.

"You have two hours training first to motivate you and then you just walk over the fire with all the group shouting and cheering for you. "Afterwards you feel like you can do anything."

Cliff Mann, of Nottingham-based company Blaze, said he had trained well over 2,000 people to walk over beds of fire, including blind people, and no-one had ever been injured.

Cliff, a martial arts expert, said: "I initially trained people in martial arts to walk over hot coals nine years ago and since then I've trained thousands of people.

"The reasons you don't get burnt are just down to physics. The material we use radiates a lot of heat, but it doesn't conduct heat very well. Because you are moving over the coals, it doesn't give you enough contact time to get burnt."

About one person in a hundred gets a blister, usually due to a piece of coal lodging between their toes.

Cliff said: "The challenge is in being able to take yourself from fear and worry to walking across on your own."

Everyone from 18 to 80 is welcome to join in the event on Sunday, August 1. To take part, firewalkers need to raise £75 or more through sponsorship.

Anyone who is thought to have drunk alcohol or taken drugs before the event will not be allowed to firewalk. For an application form, contact Cassie on 01254 52620, fax 01254 693200 or textphone 01254 693200.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.