In the wake of a fire at a factory in the West Midlands, farming unions have claimed Chinese lanterns present "significant risks [to] fields of standing crops and buildings, livestock and marine animals."

The NFU, Women’s Food and Farming Union (WFU) and Marine Conservation Society called on the public to think twice before releasing the lanterns on Monday.

The groups claimed farm animals can be injured or killed by ingesting parts of the lanterns that land in fields. However, a government report into the issue, found that the associated risks are "very small and confined to isolated incidents."

The farm groups also believe the lanterns could cause wildfires if they land on moorland. NFU rural surveyor Louise Staples said on Monday, "As we have seen today, [lanterns] can also cause severe fires on an industrial scale, an event that left several people injured. We really would hope people would think twice about releasing them into the air because of the very real dangers they pose."

Ms Staples was referring to a fire at a recycling plant in Smethwick on Sunday, believed to have been started by a single lantern. At its height, two hundred firefighters were involved in tackling the blaze, and ten were reportedly injured.  

Marine Conservation Society head of conservation, Mike Cook, said that as well as a fire risk, lanterns were also a danger for wildlife through choking and entanglement when they came back down to earth or float out to sea. He said, "Lanterns floating over the sea have been mistaken for distress flares. MCS volunteers regularly find bits of lanterns on beaches during the hundreds of beach cleans we carry out every year. The paper may have gone but the frames are still intact and dangerous – both to humans and marine wildlife. These mobile fireballs have to come down somewhere, and it’s often on farmland or out at sea."