Maybe you were also at one of the many Easter fires in Drenthe last weekend. What remains is a smoldering hope. In Grolloo, the remains are cleaned up by volunteers.
A large circle of white ash on the black field on Meerkampsweg marks the spot where the fire raged yesterday. After a night of hail and rain, the flames are still blazing. Henk Zeelenberg stirs up the remains with a trident. “We make sure that oxygen is added so that everything burns clean,” he explains. “We want to leave the land tidy so that the farmer can start sowing sugar beets this week.”
7 meters high and 15 meters in diameter. Those were the dimensions of the hump in Grolloo. “It was a very nice high”, says Zeelenberg. “Unfortunately, it started to drip a bit at one point, but it didn’t spoil the fun.” Children ran around the hump, the marching band played music. There was chocolate milk and lemonade. “It is an important event for community togetherness in the village.”
Even during the cleanup, the rain occasionally falls down considerably. Close to the smoldering hope, the volunteers don’t notice much. “When you get here it’s cold and wet. But by the fire it’s like a tropical island; nice and warm and it’s separate.” Zeelenberg estimates the temperature in the core of the hump to be 600 degrees. “You can’t stand for long, because then your shoes will melt.” Looking down, smoke billows from his footwear. “It’s going well,” he says, cooling the rubber in a puddle of mud.
The controls around the Easter fire are strict, both during the construction and the breakdown. “We save some carbon residues for the municipality, so they can test whether it is clean.” Zeelenberg is convinced that it contains no contamination. “When the large wood has burned out, we spread the ashes over the land. The beets grow well there.”