{"id":3247,"date":"2015-04-23T11:53:49","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T11:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=3247"},"modified":"2015-04-25T23:40:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T23:40:18","slug":"paasvuren-easter-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/paasvuren-easter-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"Paasvuren &#8211; Easter Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A very, very old tradition that ignites the east of the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, notably Germany, every Easter &#8211;\u00a0<em>paasvuren!\u00a0<\/em>Throughout the year, a small group collects <em>snoeihout\u00a0<\/em>&#8211;\u00a0branches, twigs, and other bits of wood &#8211; and creates a pile. When the night falls during Easter, the fire is set on fire. This fire is then for the entire village or town, to enjoy. These piles can get very large! But why? Why are there not many small ones? Why would people not create their own little fires?<\/p>\n<p><em>Paasvuur<\/em>\u00a0in my home town in Germany<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paasvuren - Easter Fires!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QWIZEtGsmYw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The answer lies in modern safety and environmental concerns. <em>Paasvuren<\/em>\u00a0are\u00a0perceived as dangerous if ignited close to buildings, which is therefore prohibited. Also, the large amount of fires brings with it a large amount of Greenhouse Gas Emissions &#8211; a modern environmental concern. Especially the burning of more than just\u00a0<em>snoeihout<\/em>, for example car tires, made the toxicity of the smoke a lot worse. Therefore, municipalities\u00a0decided to keep\u00a0<em>paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>in central places only, and only consisting of\u00a0<em>snoeihout<\/em>. And like this, the tradition lived on.<\/p>\n<p><em>Paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>are believed to have existed for thousands of years, originating in Germanic mythology and Old-Saxon beliefs. How old exactly the fires are is unclear, however the first written\u00a0evidence of <em>paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>was from 1559.\u00a0They would have stood for fertility in Germanic times. Later, when Christianity spread throughout Europe, the fires were given a Christian connotation. The fire since then has stood\u00a0for the rise of Jesus, and are therefore burnt on Good Friday,\u00a0Holy\u00a0Saturday and Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Why were\u00a0<em>paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>not just banned, like many other Germanic traditions? Well, the Germanic tribes were tough. Even though it was prohibited to carry out their tradition, they went ahead anyway. And when the Christians figured that banning is no option, the meaning was changed. Creative!<\/p>\n<p>In the Second World War, there was a rule in place for the nights:\u00a0<em>verduisteren!\u00a0<\/em>Such darkening was imposed by the German occupier in order to make villages and cities invisible for bombers. Since\u00a0<em>paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>create a lot of light, they were not allowed. So also\u00a0<em>paasvuren\u00a0<\/em>had to be\u00a0<em>verduisterd<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 366px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.1rs.nl\/oldstatic\/dn-joomla\/stories\/foto-nieuws9\/es1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"356\" height=\"201\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The largest paasvuur in Espelo! (Image by paasvuurespelo.nl)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Twente<\/em>, a part of the province\u00a0<em>Overijssel,<\/em>\u00a0is the most famous area for\u00a0<em>paasvuren<\/em>, as there are many fires built close to each other. This is the area I am from, and I remember the many times we would drive out there and discover the many fires that were lit during the night. It was always a lot of fun: where was the largest?!<\/p>\n<p>So&#8230; Where is the largest? It is in a small town in <i>Twente<\/i>, called\u00a0<em>Espelo.\u00a0<\/em>They made a fire good for the\u00a0<em>Guiness World Records\u00a0<\/em>in 2012, which was a stunning 45,98 m high! (150.8 ft). It is even more impressive when considering that only 4,5 m (15 ft) are allowed to be built with a crane &#8211; all the rest has to be done by hand! There are pictures of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paasvuurespelo.nl\/paasvuurespelo\/index.php\/media2\/foto-s\/foto-album\">this year<\/a>, and there is a video of the largest fire in 2012:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paasvuur Espelo 2012 - Pasen - Guiness World Records - Easter fire\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/15k4MiRZD9g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Do you have something similar where you are from? Are you familiar with Easter fires?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A very, very old tradition that ignites the east of the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, notably Germany, every Easter &#8211;\u00a0paasvuren!\u00a0Throughout the year, a small group collects snoeihout\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0branches, twigs, and other bits of wood &#8211; and creates a pile. When the night falls during Easter, the fire is set on fire. This fire is&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/paasvuren-easter-fires\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713],"tags":[3167,7,358663],"class_list":["post-3247","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture-2","tag-easter","tag-holidays","tag-pasen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3253,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions\/3253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}