A wildfire in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland has been burning for a fourth day near Glenmore, with firefighters reporting real progress as conditions turned more favourable. The blaze, which broke out earlier in the week and sent a thick plume of smoke across the hills, forcing evacuations in the Glenmore area, has grown into a slow-burning fire now covering around six square kilometres, with a couple of flanks of particular activity on high ground.
The fire service said the picture had improved. Assistant Chief Officer John Henderson, of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, said crews and personnel had been on the ground for the past three to four days and had been working in partnership with agencies including Forestry Scotland to make a significant impact. He said the conditions had been favourable and that real progress had been made, describing the news over the previous twelve hours, since the early hours of the morning, as generally positive.
Henderson cautioned, however, that the situation could still change. Wildfires, he said, are weather-driven events, so any deterioration in conditions could quickly have an impact on a fire spread across a mountain range, where the terrain is treacherous and in places inaccessible and where flames can move quickly. With a number of areas evacuated as a precaution, he said local residents were at the centre of the response and involved in the local resilience partnership, while the public was being urged to stay away from the affected area.
The fire first took hold earlier in the week. When crews were initially mobilised to the scene just before midday, they were confronted with what officials described as a fire front stretching around two kilometres wide, a fast-developing incident on some of the most popular high ground in the country.
A substantial response was sent to tackle the blaze. According to the fire service, six fire appliances were deployed along with a wildlife unit, specialist resources and tactical commanders, all directed to the scene as the scale of the fire became clear. Crews set about trying to get ahead of the flames on difficult terrain, conscious that the fire was moving through dry vegetation, trees and woodland.
Firefighters were working closely with landowners in an effort to contain the incident, chiefly by creating fire breaks intended to starve the flames of fuel and stop them advancing. That work, however, was being made far harder by the weather. High winds were fanning the fire and pushing it across areas of trees and woodland, allowing it to spread and making the task of bringing it under control more difficult.
As a precaution, a number of sites in the path of the fire were cleared. Officials said homes, businesses, campsites and ski resorts, several of which also run summer activities within the Glenmore Forest Park area, had been closed and evacuated because of their proximity to the incident. Road closures were also put in place across the area to keep the public away and to give the emergency services room to work.
Despite the size of the fire front and the speed with which it developed, the fire service said no casualties had been reported at this stage. Crews described a large-scale operation, working to contain the blaze and to limit any further spread, while stressing that the situation remained active as the wind continued to carry the flames and smoke across the woodland and open ground of the national park.
The blaze in the Cairngorms came against the backdrop of a heightened wildfire threat across the country. Authorities had warned of a very high risk of wildfires for large parts of Scotland this week, with a formal warning in place for eastern Scotland running from Wednesday through to the following Monday. Officials said the weather conditions on the day had contributed directly to the incident taking hold and spreading so quickly.
That risk, forecasters said, was being driven by a combination of factors: warm weather, strong winds and an unusually dry spell that had left the ground and vegetation parched. A historically dry spring and low rainfall had turned much of the landscape into ready fuel, meaning that even a small ignition could develop rapidly into a serious fire once the wind picked up, as appeared to have happened in the Cairngorms.
As the operation continued, crews on the scene highlighted a strain on aerial resources. According to those at the fire, there was no helicopter support available to them, with the aircraft that would normally assist understood to have been deployed to England and Wales to fight wildfires there. Firefighters described such support as critical and said they urgently needed it to help bring the blaze under control, while on the ground they continued to deploy fire tenders and specialist equipment and worked swiftly to contain the fire front.
The Cairngorms fire was not an isolated event, with crews having been called to wildfires elsewhere in recent days as the dry, breezy conditions persisted. Officials repeated their appeals for people to take care in the countryside during the period of heightened risk, and said they were committing their resources to the incident as they worked to bring the fire front under control and protect the surrounding forest, homes and businesses.