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A flame performer in front of a crowd with Carrie in the background.

Iron, Fire, and Creativity Collide at the Festival of Combustion 2025

By Blog, Programs

There’s nothing quite like standing in front of a furnace as molten iron pours out in a river of fire. The roar, the sparks, the heat—it’s a spectacle that you’ll feel in your bones. 

On Saturday, October 4, from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m., the Carrie Blast Furnaces will come alive with that unforgettable energy at the Festival of Combustion 2025, presented by United States Steel.

Now in its ninth year, the Festival of Combustion has become one of the region’s most exciting fall traditions—a daylong celebration of industrial arts, American craft, and the communities that keep those traditions alive.

Three workers tending to the fire for an Iron Pour at the the Festival of Combustion.

The Iron Pour: The Heart of the Festival

If you’ve never seen an iron pour before, this is the year. Rivers of Steel’s metal arts team will fire up the furnaces throughout the day, streaming molten iron into molds while festival-goers look on. Even better, you can carve your own scratch mold and watch as it transforms into an aluminum keepsake. As evening falls, the furnaces glow in a dramatic iron pour performance that lights up the site in flame, sound, and color.

The iron pour is both a nod to Pittsburgh’s past and a dramatic work of art in the present—an awe-inspiring experience that connects history, creativity, and community in a way that only Carrie can,” says Chris McGinnis, Vice President of Programs and Development at Rivers of Steel.

Workers at Carrie Furnaces prepare for the Iron Pour at the Festival of Combustion.What You’ll Find Beyond the Flames

The festival is about the creativity that thrives in southwestern Pennsylvania today. Throughout the day you can:

  • Try hands-on workshops like raku ceramics, mosaics, “Space Metal” aluminum scratch molds, penny pendants, graffiti art, and more.
  • Watch live industrial arts demonstrations, including hot riveting (new this year!), power hammer forging, blacksmithing, welding, and glassblowing.
  • Explore the Heritage Craft Tent, where you’ll find blacksmiths at work, rye whiskey tastings, historic games for kids, and cultural heritage organizations sharing their stories.
  • Catch live performances all day long: The Polkamaniacs, Erika June and the Tunes, DJ Zombo’s Record Party, flame dancers, and graffiti and tattoo artists.
  • Refuel with craft beer from Oskar Blues, Straub, and Cigar City, plus some of Pittsburgh’s best food trucks.

And of course, the night ends with a bang—a fireworks finale over the Carrie Furnaces, thanks to B&D Fireworks.

A blacksmithing demonstration taking place at the Festival of Combustion. A First Festival for Rivers of Steel’s New CEO

For Rivers of Steel’s new president and CEO, Mary Murrin, this will be her first Festival of Combustion.

I’m excited to see firsthand how this festival brings people together around Pittsburgh’s heritage and creative spirit,” she says. “Events like this showcase the value these historic sites bring to our region—not only as touchstones of the past, but as vital spaces for culture, innovation, and community today.

Plan Your Visit

  • Date: Saturday, October 4, 2025
  • Time: 3:00–9:00 p.m.
  • Location: Carrie Furnaces, 801 Carrie Furnace Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA 15218
  • Tickets: $25 in advance; free for ages under 18 at FestivalOfCombustion.com
  • Parking: Free, on-site

Admission includes all workshops, demos, and marketplace access. Self-guided tours of the landmark grounds are also available until 7 p.m.

A woman dressed in an orange phoenix costume stands in the foreground of the Festival of Combustion at Carrie Furnaces.The Festival of Combustion 2025 is made possible thanks to our sponsors: United States Steel, Peoples Natural Gas, NEXTpittsburgh, Butler Gas Products, Chiz Bros, Jackson Welding Supply, and UPMC Health Plan.

two girls in google hold water dropper and sample

Rivers of Steel Receives Support from the Alcoa Foundation for Full STEAM Ahead Programming

By Press Room, Programs

Rivers of Steel is proud to announce that we have been awarded a grant from the Alcoa Foundation in support of our Full STEAM Ahead educational initiative. This funding will help expand hands-on learning opportunities for students across our region, fostering both environmental awareness and creative problem-solving skills.

At its core, Full STEAM Ahead introduces K–12 learners to the complex intersections of industry, innovation, environment, and economics. Through interactive curriculum, students come to understand that cities are more than centers of commerce, they are living ecosystems. The program encourages young people to think critically about urban environments, while exploring ways to balance development, ecology, and community well-being.

The historic Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Landmark provides a powerful setting for this work. The site includes rare riverfront access along the Monongahela, featuring the last remaining natural river beach within Pittsburgh’s pool system. Its presence offers important context for students as they consider the long-term impact of industrialization on local waterways and ecosystems. This unique landscape connects the environmental, cultural, and historical lessons of the program in a way few sites can.

Thanks to the Alcoa Foundation’s support, Rivers of Steel can continue to build connections between the arts, environmental sciences, and history, while also opening pathways to the trades. Aluminum casting and forging activities, for example, introduce students to traditional foundry work and its relevance to today’s economy. These projects highlight meaningful career options while sparking creativity and curiosity. To further these opportunities, representatives from Rivers of Steel’s adult workforce training programs also meet with older students, sharing information about paid training opportunities in the traditional trades.

By blending education, creativity, and career exploration, Full STEAM Ahead empowers students to better understand their communities, their environment, and their own future possibilities.

Rivers of Steel extends its sincere gratitude to the Alcoa Foundation for this generous support. Their partnership makes it possible for us to provide innovative programming that inspires the next generation while preserving and activating one of the region’s most important historic landmarks.

Shoreline of the Carrie Blast Furances

Industry Meets Inquiry: Students Explore the Eco Revolution Happening at the Carrie Furnaces

By Newsletters, Programs

Glimpses of the inspirational force that is Mother Nature can be found throughout the Carrie Blast Furnaces historical site, noting the transition from manmade infrastructure to the reclamation of nature and a nod to the cycle of life and death. Many have paid homage to this cycle, most notably being The Carrie Deer created by the Industrial Arts Co-op, made up of artists George Davis, Liz Hammond, Tim Kaulen, John Latell, Joe Small, Tim Yohman, and Bob Ziller. Today, the former Steel industry structure and worksite houses the only non-operative blast furnaces in the region and is now a habitat for wildlife, including red-tailed hawks, ravens, great horned owls, and more. This combination makes for an interesting venue for environmental science classes and history buffs alike.

This past year, Rivers of Steel educators have been bringing students in grades 5-11 to the Carrie Blast Furnaces to explore this eco revolution in a new class, Environmental Science on the Mon. This program features familiar elements from Rivers of Steel’s science classes on The Explorer Riverboat, offering unique alternatives while the Riverboat receives much-needed repairs.

What excites me about this program is the historical tour of the site, combined with access to conduct hands-on environmental testing in a location that was formerly impacted by the very industry that made this region prosperous and famous. This type of legacy pollution exists throughout Rust Belt cities and is part of the story of iron and steel just as much as the revered stories of Pittsburgh and American steel building the world,” says Suzi Bloom, Director of Education at Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. “The reality is that the peak of the steel industry happened before most environmental regulations were put in place, a concept that can be difficult for younger students to fathom.

Historic Pump House Rivers of Steel

The AC Powerhouse

The focal point of the hands-on sampling in Environmental Science on the Mon is, of course, the adjacent Monongahela River, which has a profound history of waste contamination from sewage, industry, and acid mine drainage. The Monongahela River watershed is also home to many former slag dumping sites, another contributor to the legacy pollution, so often found in iron and steel towns. People have tracked the effects of industrial contamination for more than a century. In Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (part of the Pittsburgh Survey, 1907), Margaret Byington notes that the water supply in Homestead comes from the Monongahela. “The water, some of which drains from the mines, has been used over and over for the processes of steel and coke manufacture, and is impregnated with chemicals, especially sulphuric acid.” According to a Homestead resident in 1907, “No respectable microbe would live in it.” Biological records support this claim indicating that most of the upper Monongahela River remained lifeless until well into the 1960s.

The A.C. Powerhouse (i.e., Alternating Current Power House) at The Carrie Blast Furnaces serves as the classroom space for Environmental Science on the Mon, with the building itself being part of the environmental story of the site. Initially built in 1906-1907 to generate electrical power for the U.S. Steel Homestead Works plant and the Carrie Furnaces facility, its construction was part of a company-wide effort for U.S. Steel to centralize electrical power generation among its plants in the Pittsburgh District. The company was a leader in the country in the utilization of blast furnace gas to blow the blast furnaces engines and to power electrical generators. At the height of their production, Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7 produced about 250 million cubic feet of gas per day with the potential to generate large quantities of power, producing between 2,000 and 2,500 tons of hot metal per day per furnace. By 1912, the Carrie Furnaces plant produced nearly 1 million tons of iron annually and was capable of generating 15,200 kilowatts of power for the U.S. Steel Homestead Steel Works.

During Environmental Science on the Mon, students collect data on dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, and temperature—all tests indicative of whether the river can support the life typical of a healthy freshwater ecosystem. Students test for nitrates and iron in this hands-on experience, utilizing digital meters and field test kits, and gain experience with sampling equipment. Students explore the concepts of watersheds while referencing topographic maps of the Monongahela River from 1956 and 2019, which show the drastic change and reduction of industry along the riparian zone within the last 65+ years. Today the Monongahela River is still a regional source of drinking water with healthy freshwater ecosystems providing opportunities for recreation, such as fishing and boating.

Iron Garden at Rivers of Steel

Iron Garden Tour

Rivers of Steel’s educators often collaborate with teachers to custom tailor the program experience like this summer’s Pre-College program in Computational Biology hosted through Carnegie Mellon University where students collected soil samples at the blast furnace site to later process in the laboratories at Carnegie Mellon. Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Phillip Compeau shares, “We run an immersive full-time program for students from Pittsburgh and across the country to spend four weeks analyzing the microbes in Pittsburgh soil and water environments and determining how these microbial communities change over time. Rivers of Steel has proved an integral partner as we have grown the program from 25 students in 2019 to 100 students in 2025.” Sampling soil from the Carrie Furnace site identifies how industrial activities have influenced the soil’s microbial communities. This site offers our students, many of whom are from outside western Pennsylvania, a truly unique opportunity to learn about a fascinating era of western Pennsylvania history and the iron-making process while also performing scientific research.

Over time Environmental Science on the Mon programs plan to evolve with the addition of science modules including birdwatching and plant studies in the Iron Garden at Carrie Blast Furnaces. Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Rick Darke, Penn State Master Gardeners, Addy Smith-Reiman, and CMU staff sculptor Josh Reiman, the garden features a stunning reveal of Carrie Blast Furnaces through Pennsylvania native plants. This park space once again highlights natures reclamation of the site, iron cast placards are posted up throughout the garden for a self guided experience annotating the ecological biodiversity. Rivers of Steel is proud to host the region’s postindustrial history with the wild garden being a big part of this story. The Iron Garden has become recognized as one of the region’s botanical assets and is part of the Pittsburgh Garden Trail highlighting hidden gems since 2017.

For more information on Rivers of Steel’s student programs contact Suzi Bloom, Director of Education at education@riversofsteel.com.

Rivers of Steel environmental education programs are made possible by the Arconic Foundation, The Alcoa Foundation, and The Grable Foundation.

 

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