Security personnel run alongside a bus in which the Olympic torch is placed in Paris on Monday. (Reuters)

London, April 7: Isn’t the Olympic flame supposed to be kept burning all the time on its journey from Greece, where it was lit on the ancient site of Olympia using the sun’s rays, until it reaches Beijing where it is used to set alight the cauldron for the entire duration of the Games?

The answer is yes and no.

The question about whether the flame should be kept live is being asked because the torch had to be doused thrice in Paris yesterday because of pro-Tibet demonstrators and, at least, once in London yesterday.

There is no need to worry because there is a “mother flame” which is kept burning all the time inside a sealed container and which feeds the torches. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter if one of the torches goes out — the mother flame is used to light another.

This is just as well because judging by the gathering protest in London and now Paris, those who relight the torches will be kept busy while the flame travels 85,000 miles in 20 countries, passing through India on April 17 and getting to Beijing on August 8.

The mother flame is looked after at all times by 10 well-built Chinese “flame attendants”, though after the way they roughly shoved onlookers out of the way in London yesterday, the Daily Mail today preferred to describe them as “thugs”. Others have called them “Chinese security agents”.

According to the strict traditions of the Olympic movement, the flame must be kept alive until the closing ceremony of the Games in Beijing.

The torches, the lanterns and the team of attendants, plus other security, fly in a specially chartered Air China plane bearing an Olympic flame design.

The secrets of how the flame is kept alive can now be revealed.

The torch, which is fuelled by propane, is used to carry the flame during each day’s relays, when runners carry it, mostly on foot. But there are several lanterns, which are lit from the same source, and they keep the flame alive at night or on aircraft when the torches are extinguished.

During air travel, where open flames are not allowed, the flame burns in the enclosed lanterns, which act like miner’s lamps. It is the job of the attendants to make sure the mother flame never goes out. The lanterns spend each night in a single hotel room with three guards, one of whom must be awake at any time.

“Security people try their best to keep the flame safe,” a spokeswoman for the Beijing Organising Committee has told the BBC. “The flame is always burning, whether on the plane or during the relay or overnight.”

The design of the torch reflects the host country. Beijing’s torch is 72cm high, weighs 985 grams and is made of aluminium. It can withstand winds of up to 65 km per hour and stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour.