Calls for action to make Eleventh Night bonfires safer

Politicians have said more must be done to ensure that Eleventh Night bonfires in Northern Ireland are safe and lawful.

While most passed off without any incident, on Friday a man died after falling from an unlit bonfire in east Belfast, and in the early hours of Sunday two Greenisland homes were destroyed in a blaze, which the fire service said was mostly likely caused by "accidental ignition due to embers".

On Thursday, a controversial bonfire with a replica of a mosque on top of it was set alight in Moygashel, County Tyrone, before it could be removed by police.

The fires are lit every year as part of celebrations in some unionist areas, ahead of the Orange Order's Twelfth of July parades.

Ulster Unionist leader Jon Burrows said while most of the bonfires are safe and lawful "it's an own goal for unionism when they're not and it does damage to our community when they're not".

He said what happened in Greenisland was "outrageous, it shouldn't have happened, it cannot happen again".

However, Burrows said that rather than creating a "quango" to regulate bonfires, there are "existing ways of doing things that just need dealt with better".

"For example you've got police community support partnerships right across the country they should be mapping out where these bonfires are going to be," he told BBC NI's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"You need early engagement with the police and the fire service and other agencies with the bonfire builders.

"You need enforcement if there is an issue in which there is a bonfire which, because of its size and its location, is going to be a danger

"You need intervention if there's going to be, for example, something on that bonfire that is breaking the law.

"So those rules need enforced."

Stewart Dickson of the Alliance Party said reflection was not enough, and that "we actually need action".

"That action needs to be in the form of leadership and that leadership by and large for bonfires on the 11th night has to come from unionist politicians," he said.

Dickson also said he does not believe a new body similar to the Parades Commission is needed to regulate bonfires.

"I think it's something that local authorities could easily regulate in conjunction with the fire service," the assembly member said.

"It's not genius work, it's looking at the location, it's looking at the materials and it's saying that's a safe place and that's reasonable and safe height.

"That's something that environmental health staff and the fire service could do together."

The grand secretary of the Orange Order Mervyn Gibson also said "something needs to be done to increase safety for everyone", adding that measures can be taken.

"I think it should be a case for making a bonfire as far away from houses and everywhere else as possible," he said.

"In some cases, it's just not possible. You have to think about the size of the bonfire and how it is going to impact property."

However, he recognised it can prove challenging for authorities to enforce regulations.

"I think when people hear that their culture is going to be policed in a way that could diminish it, then I think that's where the difficulty comes in," he added.

The fire service said it received 303 emergency calls and responded to 151 operational incidents - 54 of which were bonfire related - between 18:00 BST on Saturday and 02:00 on Sunday.

Homes and street lights close to bonfires across Northern Ireland were wrapped or boarded ahead of bonfires.

They included those just metres from a bonfire next to a playground in east Belfast. The lights surround part of the circumference of the pyre at Pitt Park.

About 40 homes were boarded up next to the Craigyhill bonfire in Larne.

Its organisers say its height reached 120m.

The playground and sports court was also protected from fire and heat with protective hoarding.

In Bangor, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive supplied boarding to protect widows of 101 residents close to a bonfire at Churchill Park