It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Earlier this summer, Sophia Villela was on an afternoon run in a park near Foster Beach when she saw something strange.

I saw a lot of people were setting up with blankets, dancing with fire and spinning fire

and doing all these sorts of like miraculous moves that I'd never seen before.

Yep, you heard her right.

They were dancing with fire in the middle of the park.

And I kind of grabbed one of the families that was approaching.

I asked him, I was like, what is all this?

And she was like, oh, it's the full moon jam.

Like, they do this every month.

And I was like, what?

And I wanted to know how this all came to be.

Who started it?

Who runs this?

And how is this sustained?

I'm curious city reporter Monica Eng,

and I recently invited the organizers of the full moon jam to WBEZ studios.

They came to meet our question asker and tell her how this fiery tradition got started

and was almost extinguished.

But after 15 years, it blazes brighter than anyone could have ever imagined.

It's even on the Chicago Park District website.

So how did this all happen?

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