Reckless farmers and fly-tippers in the line of fire

FOLLOWING large-scale destruction of the countryside by fires, last year, action is being taken to prevent a recurrence before the annual gorse- burning gets underway.

Under the Wildlife Act, it is illegal to start gorse fires between March 31 and August 31. Many of the fires are set in April, the month when most damage was done last year. Usually lit in mountain scrubland, they resulted in huge loss of wildlife, vegetation and forestry and came close to engulfing dwelling houses.

Some scenic mountain areas were scarred and blackened for the remainder of the year. The State-owned woodland company, Coillte, had to pay €3.5m last year to clean up 254 blazes on its lands in the worst year for forest fires in decades.

Coillte is raising awareness of the dangers of fires, and, last Thursday, held a Forest Fires Awareness Day in Mullingar. A demonstration on how to plan for, and deal with, forest fires was staged. A fire was started in a section of heather and methods of extinguishing it, including use of a helicopter, were shown.

The aim was to brief interested parties on the need to be prepared for the fire season and to ensure that adequate fire plans and prevention measures were in place.

Also last week, people in the Muckross area of Killarney, where 800 hectares of commonage were ravaged by an inferno last April, had a meeting to ensure such does not happen again.

Gorse burning is an age-old practice. Most outbreaks are started by farmers who burn their land to clear it of scrub and unwanted vegetation, to allow for new growth. Laws regulating the tradition are regularly breached. The economic crisis has become a factor. Householders and businesses are increasingly flouting the law by dumping in forests, often setting their rubbish alight, to escape waste disposal charges.

It is believed up to five people have died in recent years as a result of illnesses caused by exposure to woodland fires. Farmers have also died, after being caught up in fires which they themselves started.

Around 784 hectares of Coillte forestry was set ablaze last year, during the worst damage to the State-owned lands in recent memory — three times the annual average for the previous 18 years. Mayo, Galway, Donegal and Leitrim were the worst-hit counties.

The location of the fires was purely down to the landscape along the western part of the country, where there is more gorse and bogland. But there is also a cultural problem in Ireland with people illegally dumping waste in forestry — a phenomenon that’s non-existent in other countries.

The fires create massive additional pressures for the fire brigade service and leave other areas exposed. For instance, if several fire tenders in a western county are called from their stations in towns to outlying forest and moorland areas many kilometres away, it means there’s a much-depleted fire-fighting service to deal with other fires, or emergencies.

This was the case in Co Kerry, last year, where in April alone the county’s fire service responded to more than 70 call-outs to mountain fires. The gorse was exceptionally dry after a spell of fine weather and, fanned by even light winds, the fires spread very quickly.

Some of the most spectacular fires were in the Glenflesk and Muckross areas of Killarney, coming perilously close to houses. The fires also threatened Killarney National Park, which contains some of the last remaining ancient oak and yew woods in Ireland, as well as thousands of hectares of what could be described as general forestry. Deer, ground-nesting birds and other animals were destroyed.

Muckross Community Association last week held a public meeting, which was attended by senior fire brigade representatives, Gardaí, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, forestry and Dept of Agriculture officials and farming organisations.

People were urged to be vigilant, but issues such as clearances for fire breaks and the roles of various organisations were also highlighted. Some people felt the closed season for gorse-burning should be extended and should start in mid-April.

People made it clear that they don’t want a repeat of what happened not only last year, but for several years past, when some showed scant regard not only for their environment, but also for the safety of their neighbours and their neighbours’ property.

Last year, the fires literally came within metres of some people’s homes, sometimes crossed roads and prevented people from getting to their houses.