L’Ancresse Common fire may have been started deliberately
THREE brush fires have been tackled by firefighters in just over 24 hours, adding to two others since the island soared to near-record breaking temperatures last week.
Guernsey reached 34.2C last Monday, its hottest July day ever and just 0.1C shy of the top temperature ever recorded locally.
Most concerning for Fire & Rescue was its discovery of a blaze yesterday afternoon near Bunker Hill on L’Ancresse Common, which was believed to have been started intentionally.
‘It’s almost certainly been started by youths, there’s nothing else in the area that could have started it,’ said crew commander Adrian Savident.
Two fires were reported the previous evening – one on privately-owned land near Rue du Bigard, measuring about 5m by15m, which required about 15,000 litres of water to extinguish fully, and another in the gorse behind the former Bon Port Hotel, measuring 10m by 25m.
Neither were believed to have been caused with malicious intent, but both areas required dampening down yesterday as they had continued to burn underground.
Mr Savident said the fire service had definitely seen an increase in the number of call-outs during the hot weather.
‘There’s no way to find out what has caused them, it could possibly be bonfires that people assume have gone out but then it burns underground,’ he said.
‘At [Rue Du Bigard] it required a lot of water. It was very deep and quite piled up – you can spend ages on it, then think it is out, but it isn’t.’
He said that although it is not known exactly what has caused the fires, heat had definitely been a contributing factor to all the incidents.
No-one has been hurt at any of the fires reported in the last two weeks.
Fire & Rescue also responded to two blazes in the early hours of last Tuesday after the hottest day of the recent spell of scorching temperatures – one along the cliffs at Le Gouffre and another at Blancs Bois Vinery, where a number of trees were alight.
Recent extreme hot weather has resulted in wildfires spreading across parts of the UK, including a large-scale blaze in undergrowth at Dartford Heath in Kent, to which a dozen fire engines responded.
