Wild fires west Cornwall.

[Graham Easterling]

Fire engines from 24 fire stations, from all over Cornwall (as far as Saltash, 80 miles away) have been battling the wildfires between Cape Cornwall & Sennen over recent days.

Friends who live directly under the recent smoke plume, just inland of Sennen, left one bedroom window open, and everything in the room was covered in black dust.

It has been hot, dry and sometimes windy, but June was wet overall. In the old days up (until '80s) there was extensive controlled burning of the undergrowth late winter. This was then banned for a while, Natural England, NT & the rest all know better than people who farm lands that have been in the same family for centuries. (Banning of stubble burning was fine, it is far more environmentally friendly to plough it in.) These controlled burns greatly reduced the risk of far bigger, vastly more environmentally harmful and dangerous blazes, in the summer. Whilst there is no longer a ban, little controlled burning now takes place, so every dry spell. . . . .

North coast moorland near Zennor, 7 or so miles from Penzance.

According to the great book "Making of the English landscape" the foreground has the oldest surviving field pattern in England,

Graham

Penzance

[Nick Gardner]

The arsonists are just waking up to countryside being burnable this summer. It seems they awoke a bit earlier down your Graham.

Round here the countryside is so dry it would go up without anything more than a match but nothing just yet. I remember 1990 & 1995 when everybody seemed to be going out for a country walk with their matchboxes.

In Portugal, setting fire to the countryside is a national pastime every summer.

Whilst the nights have called down, the bone-dry ground still allows the daytime temperatures to soar towards 30°C and there are sea breezes now which due to the warmth of the sea in Lyme Bay, bring in extra humidity and dewpoints 16°C to 19°C.

Nick

Otter Valley, Devon.  

[Graham Easterling]

I noticed Scilly having the warmest night in the UK on 2 or 3 days over the last week, down to the high sea temperature. 

I don't think it was deliberate arsen.  According to the fire brigade the series of fires between Gwynver and the Cape are linked. The ground is so dry the fire is spreading through the root system and flaring up in a new, nearby site. The root cause is thought to be a BBQ. The whole BBQ thing is out of control. 

Apparently fire services have been coming from as far as Somerset to assist. There have been a number of fires on the Lizard.

Graham

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

The Cairngorm Fire is producing a bureaucratic nightmare.  Who own what land, who is responsible and will pay to put it out.

Meanwhile, the fire apparently remains uncontained.

Jack