FIREFIGHTERS AND Army personnel were continuing to battle gorse fires in counties Donegal, Sligo and Offaly last night.
Fires, described by senior fire officers as “unprecedented”, were also being tackled in a number of Border counties and in the North.
The most serious fire in Co Donegal was in a forest at Bonnyglen, Loughfad in Glenties. Fire units from Glenties, Dungloe, Donegal town and Killybegs attended the scene, as did three Coillte helicopters. Local people assisted in the effort to contain the fire and other fire units from Ballyshannon and Glencolumbkille were on standby.
There was a danger the fire could spread to homes near the forest, according to Donegal’s chief fire officer Bobby McMenamin.
Two Air Corps helicopters fitted with giant “Bambi” buckets capable of dropping 1,200 litres of water on the flames attended another serious fire at Muckish Mountain near Falcarragh. Thirty two Army personnel were involved in efforts to put it out.
Mr McMenamin warned landowners and the public to remain alert in the coming days.
“Conditions are still ideal for gorse fires,” he said. “We have windy conditions, very dry conditions out on the land and I would ask people to be very careful until the rain comes.”
Major fires in Dungloe, Ardara and Glenties have been contained but teams are still tackling several other smaller fires, including Bridgend and Milford.
In Co Sligo, fire brigade units from Sligo, Ballymote, Tubbercurry and Enniscrone attended a major fire at Dromore West. The Coillte helicopter also attended the scene.
A number of fires spread on to Bord na Móna land between Ferbane and Edenderry in Co Offaly. Some 450 Bord na Móna staff were working “around the clock” to put out the fires and to prevent them spreading further into the boglands, according to Paul Riordan, head of peat operations at the company.
Mr Riordan appealed to landowners near the company’s boglands not to burn gorse and heather, saying this was the main reason fires were starting and getting out of control. He said the bogs were very dry after the spell of recent good weather and a lack of rain. He added there was evidence that some fires had been started deliberately.
“We hope to get these fires put out in the next 24 or 48 hours,” he said yesterday.
The fire service in Co Louth was last night continuing to battle two fires. The first was in Castletowncooley near the county council’s machinery storage yard. The second was at Edentubber, where efforts have been continuing since before last weekend to extinguish a blaze that is also close to Claremont, where RTÉ has one of its most important masts. A senior Coillte officer has said he is “very certain” that many of the wild fires in counties Monaghan, Louth and Meath were started deliberately. PJ Fitzpatrick, district manager for the Border area as well as parts of the midlands, also estimated some 50 hectares of Coillte land has been lost in Cavan and Monaghan and about 15 hectares in Louth.
David Thompson, coast and countryside manager with the National Trust in Northern Ireland, said it was “really worrying that people are deliberately setting fires to a wonderful natural resource like the Mourne Mountains”. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said the holiday weekend had been the busiest in its history. At one stage, the service was getting a call every 45 seconds.
The Mournes; Ballycastle, Co Antrim; Gortin, Co Tyrone; and Rostrevor, Co Down, were badly affected. Chief fire officer Peter Craig said it had been “phenomenally busy”. Two boys, aged 10 and 15, were arrested on suspicion of setting fires in the Aghnagar Road area of Sixmilecross, near Omagh, Co Tyrone.
Met Éireann is forecasting persistent and heavy downpours along the west coast today. However, rain may not arrive in the east, including the Mournes, until tonight and conditions are expected to remain windy.
The Irish Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) has described the fires as unprecedented and has condemned the “reckless actions” of individuals who started fires deliberately.
Speaking ahead of the CFOA Annual Conference and Technology Exhibition in Co Limerick today, chief fire officer (Clare) and CFOA vice chairman Adrian Kelly said lives were put at risk by those who started fires deliberately.
“Such reckless actions have placed the lives of both members of the local community and also firefighters at risk. These fires have also destroyed hundreds of acres of gorse land, forestry and bogs, with negative consequences for property, tourism and wildlife,” he said.
WILDLIFE UNDER THREAT FIRES WIPE OUT MANY BIRD SPECIES:A NUMBER of bird species are under threat from the gorse fires, Birdwatch Ireland has said.
Thousands of birds including stonechats, whitethroats, linnets, blackbirds, dunnocks and meadow pipits have been affected by the fires in the middle of the nesting season.
Niall Hatch of Birdwatch Ireland said the fires have wiped out many species and many will find it difficult to breed again.
“We have only got over two hard winters which have left the numbers of birds well down.
“But these fires have now decimated many species. We are in the middle of the nesting season and tens of thousands of chicks and eggs have been destroyed.
“Birds like the stonechat and the whitethroat, as well as more common birds like linnets and blackbirds, have been decimated because of the fires,” he said.
Another relatively rare bird, the cuckoo, which has large numbers in Donegal and Mayo, will also suffer because it nests in other birds’ nests.
“There’s no question that cuckoo numbers will now also be under threat,” he said.
Mr Hatch also revealed how birds which survived the fires will find food scarce after millions of insects and other food supplies were also destroyed in the gorse fires.
“These fires are going to have a huge knock-on effect for many years to come.
“Thankfully no human life has been lost but the impact on wildlife has been enormous and that is often overlooked,” he said.
– STEPHEN MAGUIRE