At the beginning of the 20th century, wicks or firecracker wicks were a highly commercialized product, and they became an emblematic item of LIASA. Since 1934, during the civil war and until the arrival of the 1950s, it was the core product of the company's production. First under the trademark "El Caballo" and then with "La Cabra", still active nowadays.
Firecrackers wicks are a cotton cord, between seven and twelve millimeters in diameter, typically orange in color, which once ignited by a spark or flame, maintains an incandescent ember that is fanned if more air is supplied by blowing or through the wind effect. What keeps the embers of the wick burning is an oxidizing product that provides the appropriate oxygen to keep it incandescent.
In its beginnings, the wick was used above all for work in the field, due to its combustion capacity, and it was distributed throughout the national territory and even abroad. In Chile, for example, they used it for nitrate mining; if the nitrate grains fanned the wick, they were good; if not, they could not be marketed.
From the original wick, other products and applications were created, such as wick lighters, wick lamps or Zippo lighters.
This close relationship between LIASA and the firecrackers wick is such that it has continued through the following decades. Currently, the article is presented in a classic way, cutting it into pieces for lighting firecrackers. Lighting a firecracker with a gas or gasoline lighter can be dangerous because the flame can directly ignite the gunpowder. With the lit wick makes an ember, so the firecracker ignition happens slower and you have more time to walk away.
