It started, by the maker's own telling, with a running joke: every time the Hue fireplace effect gets set at home, there is a flicker of worry that tonight the fire department actually shows up. This project takes that nervous laugh and scales it all the way up to a full Halloween display on a two-story suburban house, built to look like an active residential structure fire.
The way it is put together is what sells it. Every window gets its own lighting and smoke arrangement, and windows on both the first and second floors take part. The interior window lighting runs in sync with smoke dispersal outside, so glowing flames and dense smoke appear to billow from the windows and across the front porch.
The realism is the standout detail, and it comes with a cost. Passersby called 911 repeatedly, and the owners have asked people to stop calling emergency services over the display. The setup sits outside Greenville, South Carolina, and a televised news segment covered both the display and the controversy around it.
One thing stays hidden: the fixtures, fog machines, control boards, and wiring inside each window setup are never shown, so how it all works behind the glass is an open question. On the neighborhood side, one homeowner said most neighbors enjoy the display and only roughly one percent disapprove, while a different homeowner questioned where the boundary lies if a setup like this is judged too controversial.