Balloon
Flight Crew Commercial
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30; Flight Crew Total 4000; Flight Crew Type 4000
Situational Awareness; Workload
Ground Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Ground Event / Encounter Object; Ground Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control
Human Factors; Weather
After having sent 2 test balloons (party balloons with helium) to check winds and finding they both showed no more than 7 knots of wind and practically went straight up as far as I could see them. Only clouds in the visible area were small white cumulus approximately 10;000 feet high. I chose to launch my hot air balloon near in a dirt lot with no obstruction down wind and more than enough room to move around in case of wind gusts. Knowing I might experience some gusts of wind due to only one local airport having seen gusts up to 14 knots. During my entire set up and inflation; I hadn't experienced any gusts more than 10 knot. After inflating the balloon to an upright position and the balloon maintaining its usual shape and taking pressure as normal I asked the passengers to load into the balloon basket. I was still tied to the van with a 5/8' polyester yacht braided rope and started heating the balloon with a fuel tank only used for the purpose of inflation to buoyancy.Before I could heat the balloon to buoyancy the wind hit the balloon from the opposite direction pushing me toward the passenger van westbound. Then hit me again heading east at an estimated 30 knots while dragging the balloon to the end of the tie down rope. The rope then broke and the balloon began to drag across the large lot. I gave full power to the burners trying to heat the balloon into flight knowing I wouldn't be able to stop the balloon on the ground in that speed of wind before hitting something. We started to lift off the ground approximately 10 to 15 feet off the ground and the balloon started descending again toward a chain link fence. Once hitting the fence was inevitable I started opening the deflation port. It took an additional acre of land for the balloon to come to a complete stop on another chain link fence.After this was all over the wind had completely stopped; and had relatively calm winds the rest of the evening. All of the small cumulus clouds were completely gone after this incident with clear skies. Making me assume those clouds had dissipated causing outflow gusts of at least 30 knots. In total hitting 3 chain-link fences. All passengers and myself were unharmed with no injuries and no damage to the balloon to cause it to be unairworthy.
A Balloon pilot preparing for departure reported unexpected gusts of wind blew the balloon across the ground uncontrolled. The pilot became airborne for a short period before coming to rest against a chain link fence with no injuries or damage to the balloon.