It was an emotional ceremony capping off the Stadium of Fire on Saturday viewed by 47,500 people: The massive flag used at the event for more than a decade was carried to a container upon which several large torches were then lit. The impression for many was that the flag was burned, as such symbols often are upon retirement. Several media outlets even reported the flag was burned.

Not so, says event organizer Brad Pelo. The Provo City fire marshal had told him two months earlier that it wasn't OK to burn that flag for a number of reasons.

"It wasn't as though we were trying to create an illusion," Pelo said on Thursday. "It symbolizes the burning, if that's what it was for people."

Instead, he argues, organizers looked at multiple ways to retire the flag, including asking several experienced organizations. (Section 8-k of the Flag Code states "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." The Freedom Festival's own flag retirement ceremony held in June each year involves Boy Scouts burning flags no longer fit for display.)

Pelo said they decided on a multi-pronged approach, including the container which represented a tomb and, yes, fire.

"To us, that flame was the eternal flame," he said.

Multiple blog, Twitter entries and media reports seem to indicate onlookers felt otherwise.

"The soldiers carried it to a caldron on the football field near a replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch, where it was burned," was written in the Salt Lake Tribune.

The giant flag, still intact, is considered retired, Pelo said. It will be burned at a later date but not publicly.

It couldn't be burned during the Stadium of Fire for a number of reasons, Pelo said. Its mass would make the blaze difficult to control and the synthetic material could have sent off toxic fumes.

"Would we have liked to actually burn it? Absolutely, yes," Pelo said.

Fire officials have been wary of occasional stunts, such as the much publicized 1989 and 2005 exploding of more than a million firecrackers at the same time, especially with thousands of people being allowed on the field.

"The fire marshal said 'That will never happen again,'" Pelo said.

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