To think Chinese lanterns must be banned after the fire in Germany

[ChardonnaysDistantCousin]

Animals died horribly and needlessly and lanterns with New Year's wishes were found at the scene.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50964956

Those poor animals. I can believe people don't think through the concequences of doing it, there's a lot of that happens and to a certain degree I think it's part of human nature. What I can't believe is the justification for setting them off when the dangers to property, people and animals are highlighted, as 'fun'. You are releasing a naked flame into the sky to float wherever it will and have no control over where it lands or what damage it potentially may do. I remember a FB post a couple of years ago about a horse that had it's rug set on fire by a sky lantern and the owners had issued a pleading post asking people to not do it, and pictures showing the poor horse's injuries. Trapped in a burning rug, it was horrifying and they got to it in minutes as they were there. The comments about people being fun sponges on the shared post was appalling - I thought we were past the days of hurting (or potentially hurting) animals for fun? I wonder how many people arguing that they should be allowed to do it are also vehemently against fox hunting?

Horrendous. Poor animals.

I don't know, maybe I'm being naive, but I think if we write and ask for a ban, in the light of what happened, then the MP can do something so lanterns and balloon releases are banned.

100% agree. They look very pretty, but are actually horrible. Bad for the environment and dangerous to animal life.

BAN them now. EVERYwhere

Absolutely awful. Thankfully I haven't seen one in 8 years here. I'm on the Flight Path of a major Northern UK City. Saw a few of them the year DD was born sail very close to outgoing aircraft. One landed on an electricity wire above my house. They scare me. And they are totally unnecessary and self indulgent, with the people who set them saling not giving a flying fuck!

I remember one crashing down in my back garden, and it scared the living SHIT out of my cats. Made me jump too. The light/flame had gone out a few yards back, and it started to descend, and I only saw it 4 or 5 seconds before it landed. So I proper jumped!

Luckily my cats were OK quite quickly, but when my friend's horse was spooked by one a couple of years back, her horse bolted down the field, jumped over the fence and ended up in the road in front of a lorry coming down the road.

The lorry managed to swerve and avoid the horse, but my friend could have ended up having her put to sleep if she had been hit. (Her horse was OK by the way...)

BUT...

They do need banning.

What fucking morons voted 'YABU'. Dickheads clearly.

We've had threads on Mumsnet about these for 15+ years. But at least now the people who voiciferously argued for bereaved people remembering their loved ones in any way they thought fit are now keeping quiet.

It's a shame that a ban isn't a complete deterrent.

YANBU. The story has been haunting me all day. The suffering those poor animals endured doesn't bear thinking about.

They should definitely be banned along with fireworks for public use and balloon releases. The former two may be "fun" but that's nothing compared to the damage and environmental damage they cause, and I can't excuse balloon releases either.

I read another story that's been haunting me all day too, about a man who died in a fire, trapped in his bedroom because some evil shits put a firework through his door. started by a firework put through his door. Explosives like that don't belong in the hands of the public no matter how responsible they may be, not to mention the terror caused to animals and many people.

I've been on many a thread about this, Next and while I agree that a ban is not a complete deterrent then at least is more that the free for all we have now.

I realise lanterns and balloons are used to remember loved ones who have passed away, but whenever there is a mass release and we have a thread someone always comes and says that people are grieving and now is not the time.

Well, now is the time.

Bloody hideous things. Who in their right mind would think it sensible to release waves of fire into the air?

At a recent funeral I went to the family were handing out tubes of bubble mixture. We all stood round the churchyard blowing bubbles. It was brilliant and looked so lovely, clouds of bubbles everywhere. It was a really family friendly-type affair with loads of kids there, it was really nice, as funerals go.

YANBU. Utterly disgraceful to use them. I see awful images of burnt horses on my local horse page.

About 10 years ago I was camping and some idiots started lighting these Lanterns.

Not fancying one coming down in my tent I politely asked them to stop. I was told that there was no harm as they were the eco sort with bamboo instead of wire (bamboo being potentially fatal to animals who eat slivers of it cut up in a hay crop), and told how important it was for their kids to understand spiritual beauty blah blah. I said it was a fire risk on a campsite and I would talk to Reception. They said they bought them in the Reception shop .

This proved to be true. The campsite owner said they sold them because it helped children appreciate the great outdoors.

I suggested they ask the Fire Brigade about the dangers of fire drifting over acres of polyester tents with sleeping children in them. They said “ we didn’t think of that “.

They are popular in some countries
Eg
Thailand Chang Mai New Year lantern festival

We obviously cannot demand other counties to stop using them, but we can ask for them to be banned here.

A terrible tragedy. One small blessing is that once the 3 female perpetrators realised what terrible consequences there were from their actions, they had the balls to go to the police and admit what they had done. These items are actually already banned in Germany so what they did was illegal. Maybe it takes something like this to focus the minds of those of us in UK to look for a similar ban here.

Part of the problem was, in this case, that the people did not realise they were banned. You wouldn’t necessarily know if you buy something over the internet.

I’m always shocked people are so fucking stupid as to think they can float fire into the sky with no consequence. Utter idiocy. People who do this and/or balloon releases are morons.

Can’t stand this. One aspect is that the whole concept of these is that you leave litter. If you threw litter in the street you might get a fine. So why is it ok to set off balloons and lanterns - when there’s no possibility of going round and finding the debris?

Maybe after what happened in Germany a renewed effort to get those lanterns banned might be more successful?

A wedding I attended years ago had a lantern release with everyone writing messages to the happy couple on. There were potentially 100! They began to be released from the field next to the marquee. It was the first time I'd seen them as they were a fairly new product in England at the time (2008) and I have to admit my first thought as the first few went us was 'wow they're beautiful' without having thought about any consequences.

Until about two mins later when one landed in a tree surrounding the field and began to disintegrate into flames in the branches. Everyone just kind of gasped and ran around shouting what do we do. Lucky it was winter so it went out quickly as there were no leaves to set alight and damp, but everyone just sort of stopped and you could see we were all thinking wtf did we do that for and stopped sending them up. I hope more people are aware of the dangers now but perhaps not?

I have family from Krefeld and have visited them and this zoo often. It is so sad, I can’t stop thinking about what those poor animals would have been through in that inferno

Having spent New Year in Krefeld a couple of years ago I can’t say I’m surprised that something this horrible has happened, the use of fireworks was so irresponsible. I was told we were going to see fireworks, I presumed at an organised event but instead there were crowds of people just letting fireworks off, I left with my daughter to sit in the car after I saw some idiot throw a firework under a fucking pushchair. Driving along the main road to go back to where we were staying someone drove alongside us and attempted to throw a firework under our car- it seemed like this kind of shit was accepted as normal behaviour and no one batted an eyelid.

The use of fireworks should be banned apart from organised events by properly licensed companies

Good to see the general mood has swung away from lantern and ballon releases.

I too remember many arguments about my active dislike of balloon releases being some sort of denial of allowing grieving children to come to terms with the death of a loved one.

but we can ask for them to be banned here.

I know that it's an accepted truth that successive generations are more useless than the last, but with the greatest of respect a Chinese Lantern is hardly an Apollo space shot. It's a matter of a few twists of string, paper and a tea light, and it's up, up and away.

Banning things rarely works. You might be better off with some public information campaigns.

Reading about this fire has been awful. I'm glad that the women responsible have turned themselves in.

I would like to see the lanterns banned in the UK too AND for zoos / animal shelters to have proper sprinkler systems installed if they haven't already. I'm not sure what the UK regulations currently are for the latter.