district of Wesel.
An Easter bonfire is part of Easter, as is the custom. Why District Fire Chief Udo Zurmühlen would like to ban them.
Easter is near – several Easter bonfires are lit around April 9th in the 13 municipalities of the Wesel district. If district fire chief Udo Zurmühlen had his way, these traditional Easter bonfires would be banned. “They pollute the environment, things are often burned that shouldn’t be burned,” he says. In addition, rubbish should be properly disposed of, “you can’t burn anything”. There are only exceptions for traditional events, for Zurmühlen there is a cloak. “It’s certainly nice when neighbors and clubs meet,” said the district fire chief when asked, “but everything that’s being used to light and what’s being burned isn’t going to work.”
Coated wood and pallets do not belong on a fire, tires and other waste are also taboo, toxic fumes are produced. The district police get a list of the registered traditional fires and the applicants from the municipalities. According to spokeswoman Andrea Margraf, she only takes care of the events if there is an indication that garbage is being burned. Tree trimmings, shrub trimmings and untreated wood are permitted.
Minimum distances to houses, roads and forests are for safety
In addition, the risk of accidents is high, says Zurmühlen, because many did not follow the rules. He criticizes that the fires are lit too close to buildings or the forest and are often left unattended at night, “my personal opinion is: it’s better to be left alone”. A traditional fire must be registered and approved by the local regulatory authorities. The minimum distance to buildings is 100 meters and 50 meters to roads and railway lines. The fire brigade recommends a maximum diameter of six meters and a maximum height of 3.50 meters. A 15 meter wide ring should be left free around the fire – no beer stand and no grill should stand here, for example. And of course: Even after the celebration, the fire should be controlled.
Year after year, conservationists appeal to pile up the material quite late and to carefully rearrange it again immediately before lighting it: “Many animals, such as the hare and the shrew, use the resulting heaps of brushwood as shelter. Some birds even breed in the layered heaps,” warns, for example, the Nabu. Death traps for hedgehogs, toads, rabbits & co. The animals should be given the chance to leave the material unharmed.
The district control center will not list the registered Easter bonfires this year, as there have been in the past. “It is very complex and the lists are never complete. Many people light a fire unannounced,” says district fire chief Udo Zurmühlen. In the coming week there will be a meeting between the head of the regulatory office and the district, and the fires will then also be on the agenda.
The first Easter fires were Christian and can be traced back to the 12th century
District Fire Chief Zurmühlen is not alone in his attitude towards traditional fires. A look at history: According to the LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History, Martin Luther also rejected them, albeit for different reasons. “Papal and pagan” they are. That is why the fire blessing was forbidden for a long time in Protestant regions. The Catholics also sometimes quarreled with the Christian custom: The LVR quotes the Archbishop of Cologne in 1788 that “on this occasion, due to the gathering of the young people in the dark evening, some mischief took place”. The opponents have not been successful so far: the Christian Easter fires have been documented since the 12th century as a light celebration with blessing of the fire and lighting of the Easter candle. Later, from the 14th century, there were also profane fires, according to the LVR, bonfires where celebration was the main focus. Criticism could not harm the custom for centuries.
More articles from this category can be found here: Kreis Wesel
