More than 70 Fire Departments across Costa Rica will be very vigilant from now until the early hours of Easter Sunday as communities engage in the traditional burning of the Judas Iscariot effigy.

The burning of Judas begins with the hanging of the effigy, which happens on Good Friday and is followed by burning on the night of Holy Satruday. This religious tradition is part of the Roman Catholic ritual depicting the Passion of Christ; it is a sort of street justice/scapegoating/avenging ritual that reminds faithful of the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas for few shekels.

It is interesting to note that the Judaic faith has a somewhat similar ritual during the Purim holiday, which commemorates the foiling of a plot by a Persian viceroy to kill Jewish faithful in the empire. During Purim, an effigy of the viceroy Hanan and his ten sons are burned.

In a national press conference broadcast by SINART public television, National Fire Department Director Hector Chaves explained that all members of his emergency service are respectful of this religious tradition; however, they are concerned that burning this effigy during the dry season increases the risk of accidental fires, property damage and injury.

Last year, firefighters and Red Cross volunteers responded to 11 emergencies related to this ritual; this represents a decrease from previous years. In 2008, a small sugar cane mill in a southern community of the Alajuela province was consumed by fire, and in 2009 a furniture store and repair shop went up in flames in San Rafael, province of Heredia.

There is also a problem with disorderly conduct during the burning of Judas, which seems to elicit a cacoethes state of pyromania and vandalism in some individuals. This was most evident in 2012 during a busy Holy Week for emergency responders in Costa Rica; back then, in the aforementioned Heredia community, a melee broke out between vandals just as a fire engine was arriving on scene. A firefighter was hit by rocks and the fire engine was damaged.