After much criticism of the cancellation of the Easter fires in Coevorden, the municipality will be coming this year with new agreements for igniting the fires. This was decided after a motion by the BBC2014 and the CDA, which was hired by the city council on Thursday evening.
Last week many Easter fires in Coevorden had to be canceled by the drought. In Dalen, even an already built -up Easter bump was demolished, which caused a lot of frustration to organizers and residents. Due to the increased risk of natural fires, the fire hazard was at phase 2, which ensured that many municipalities banned the Easter fires. Fortunately, the weather was just before Easter, and the Drenthe Safety Region was able to scales the risk back to phase 1, so that some fires continued at the last minute.
BBC2014 and the CDA criticized the state of affairs. They felt that the weather forecasts had not been sufficiently looked at, and that the advice of the safety region in every municipality was arrested differently. They argue for clear new rules that better take into account the weather, and where there is room to move the Easter fire to a later moment, so that it does not always lead to disappointments.
Mayor Renze Bergsma indicated during the council meeting that he also had ‘abdominal pain’ of the situation. He said it was a coincidence in which the drought, the weather forecast and the advice of the Security Region all played a role.
He called the advice of the security region valuable, but also said that the same should not always apply to the whole of Drenthe. “The weather forecasts for Noordenveld or Meppel are different from here in Coevorden,” said Bergsma. The mayor indicated that the municipality should be able to make a decision after the advice itself. That is why the municipality wants to talk to the safety region to see if that is possible.
The new agreements must be ready before the end of the year, so that the organizations know on time where they stand for next year’s Easter fires.