Minhag of children playing with fire

                                  THE PURIM LEAP- משוורתא דפוריא

In Eretz Yisroel, weeks before Lag Baomer, children collect every piece of scrap wood the can find. Before nightfall of Lag Baomer all street corners, open spaces, backyards etc. 

are aflame and lit up.  This practice pollutes the entire city to a point where many can't breathe. However, since it is done Lekovod the Tanna Rashbi and this Minhag goes back 

tens and maybe even hundreds of years ago, therefore, we are not concerned with being מזיק הרבים.

The Minhag of children lighting bonfires goes back to the times of the Gemoro.

The Gemoro says ( Sanhedrin 64b)  "כמשוורתא דפוריא." רש"י explains “On Purim, children made a fire  in a pit and jumped over it.”

The רמ"א (*in דרכי משה O.Ch. 690) quotes from the ערוך who writes, " Bachurim make an effigy of Haman and hang it on their rooftops for a few days. When Purim arrives, they make 

a fire and they have a ring on which they hang the effigy over the fire. They jump from one side (of the fire) to the other. This ring is called **משוורתא דפורים."

*This Darkei Moshe is printed only in the new Turim or in the

single volume Sefer D.M.(not in Tur)

* *Shavarta = leap-jump