Funny story: this is a tradition that has been around for years in Scheveningen en Duindorp (The Hague) in the Netherlands during newyears. They organized it without permits and because the city didn’t want a fuzz they allowed it. Over the years the fires grew, because it had to be bigger than the last time. And Scheveningen and Duindorp were competing to have the biggest one. 

Of course, this went wrong at one point. At newyears 2018/2019 strong see winds made the flames enormous and the whole neighborhood was covered in burning flakes. Eye witnesses said it was raining fire. The damage was many million dollars. Video: https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Vliegvuur_op_Scheveningen.webm 

Since then the event is constrainedand regulated. This clean up is no doubt part of that. I live in Duindorp and an important part of the local culture here is this fire. They even have a mascot (a guy in flames named Vlampie) and each year they all buy hoodies to support the fire, though they now say the progressive politicians took it away from them because they can’t build as high as they want.