Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Cael Jones from Wrexham with X-Ray's Lucy Owen

As Chinese lanterns become the must have decoration at parties and weddings across Wales, questions are being raised over their safety, and calls for them to be banned are on the increase.

At a bonfire night party last year three year old Cael Jones from Wrexham was injured when hot oil fell from a lantern onto his face.

He was left with serious burns, which have fortunately healed but the experience has left his mum Emma Foulkes, concerned, “I want the safety regulations to be higher on them, and better instructions of use. Just to make sure everyone is safe using them - and they realise how dangerous they can be.�

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service says it’s had to deal with 11 incidents connected to Chinese lanterns since 2008.

Community Manager for the service, Andy Robb warns, “Once they're released, they're uncontrolled - you set them off, you've no idea where they're going to go. And you've got a flame source there that may travel some miles, which can cause extensive fires - which do tie up a lot of resources of the fire service.�

In the last year Anne Wrench, who farms cattle in Saltney Ferry in Flintshire has found at least 50 burnt out lanterns on her land. And she’s worried that a stray lantern could set fire to one of her fields of crops, costing her thousands of pounds.

She told us, “In these fields we’ve got acres of cereals, wheat and barley and if the lanterns burn out into the field we could just lose the whole lot in a night and that would be an enormous loss to us.�

And Anne’s not the only farmer who’s worried. Last year John Lougher, who has a dairy farm near Port Talbot experienced their dangers first hand. One of his cows, who was carrying a calf at the time, died after getting wire stuck in her stomach when she ate the remains of a lantern that had landed in a field.

John was devastated when both the cow and her calf died - a very painful death, “I noticed her standing by herself not moving. I got the vet to come and have a look at her. The vet said well, it's quite likely to be wire in the gut.

“We hoped the cow would stay alive long enough to calve, the calf was still alive in the cow, but unfortunately about three weeks before calving she died. And so we lost the cow and the calf.�

It was an expensive as well as emotional loss - the cow and the calf she was carrying were worth £2,000.

Farmers Unions are now calling for the lanterns to be banned in the UK to stop this happening again to other animals.