I pastored a church in Alabama in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Some do-gooder thought the candles were a fire hazard, so we switched to electric candles (briefly), in the year 2001.
It was so stupid to have the acolytes, who were preteen children, come forward at the
beginning of the of the service, to walk down the aisle in their robes as the introit was playing, and click those electric candles on.
The Christmas service (which aroused someone’s phony fear enough to make us ditch the candles for 2000) would have been a bummer, too—if those battery candles with those firelfy-looking yellowish flickering/blinking battery candles were what we were to have used.
It took the horror of 9/11 (2001) to make us put aside the silliness of electric candles and go back to an actual candle light vigil, which I bought the candles and put together myself, for people to realize, well, what others have said above—that prayer, spirituality, and unity/oneness are only represented well by actual candles against the darkness.
The darkness around us can only draw emphasis to the light.
Unless a live fire or actual candle flames truly are a fire hazard (as in unsupervised or in a dry, arid place that could be set ablaze) would I ever suggest artificial candles as an alternative. Even they, symbolically, are better than no candles at all.