Now the Easter fire can continue, but the organization is not ready for it

There is a large bump with branches in the middle of a meadow. From the road, different signs show the road to it. A little further on is a farm. Furthermore, there is nothing in the area. And precisely the latter is the reason why this Easter fire, in the Drenthe municipality of Emmen, continues. The municipality of Emmen decided on Thursday that all fourteen planned Easter fires are allowed. Other municipalities in Drenthe and Groningen also gave green light on Thursday.

Earlier, many Easter fires in the north and east of the Netherlands were canceled because of the drought and the associated risks on natural fires.

Until it started to rain this week. After rain fell last week, the message came on Thursday that many Easter fires could still be ignited.

This applies to, among others, Groningen, Drenthe and the Achterhoek. In Friesland, where less precipitation has fallen, the advice not to let the Easter fires continue valid. It is ultimately the municipalities that decide on whether or not the Easter fires continue.

The decision to let the fires ignite nevertheless came too late for many organizers. « I canceled the traffic controllers last week and the dumping day did not go through (on which residents can bring their pruning waste, ed.). We have not built up anything, » says Harm Stoker van Paasfuur De Maten, a hamlet of Ter Apel in the municipality of Westerwolde, on the phone on Friday morning.

« Very sad, » he says. « It is a good tradition in our neighborhood. We have been doing it for more than thirty years. We had expected one hundred and fifty children who would walk towards the Easter bump with a torch, under the guidance of the music of Ter Apel’s harmony. Then we would light the bump. »

Germanic tradition

The Easter fires, especially in the east and north of the Netherlands, are originally a Germanic tradition to dedicate the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Nowadays it is primarily a coming together of villagers. « The neighbor is there, the farmer, the baker. You talk a bit together. It is good for the solidarity in the village, » says John Kremer of Buurtvereniging Emmer Erf, which organizes the Easter fire on a remote pasture in Emmen.

He walks around the big bump on Wednesday that is full of branches. The night before, fellow villagers were able to bring all their pruning waste. « About nine carts came in an hour, » says Kremer. « People save the pruning waste. Weeks before it starts are already on the street. »

Uncertainty whether or not the fires would continue, Kremer did not have. After all, the Easter fire of Emmer Erf was one of the four Easter fires in Emmen for which permission had already been given. Kremer points to the vast meadows: « Look, nothing is around here. »

In contrast to other years, this edition will be a tank with twenty thousand liters of water next to the fire. « Because of the fire hazard, we are not organizing anything further this year. We are now not allowed to do anything in a radius of a thousand meters around the fire. Previous years there were stalls and there was live music. » Due to the drought that is canceled now. It is a pity, Kremer thinks, but he is already happy that the Easter fire can continue.

Complaint

There have been complaints about Easter fires for some time, partly due to the consequences on the environment. Easter fires also bump particulate matter that suffer from lung patients. Kremer knows the complaints. « In the past, our Easter fire was a bit closer to the built -up area. That sometimes resulted in whining. Now we are holding it here in the pasture. I hope that the generation can experience this after us. »

Barry Gepken from Stichting de Mammoet, which organizes an Easter fire in Erica in Drenthe, offered a petition to MPs on Tuesday in The Hague. In the petition, which has been signed more than eighteen hundred times, it says that the Easter fire is under pressure by ‘the increasingly strict rules’, about nitrogen, among other things. The foundation wants « the ritual Easter fire in the Lower Saxon areas » the status of intangible heritage, which protects it. « We won’t let the Easter fire extinction. »

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