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The fire above Ogmore Vale
Fire crews caught on camera dealing with more than 400 fires, many of them started deliberately, across many parts of South Wales

Huge areas of grass and shrubland are a sea of charred black today after a wave of deliberately set fires swept through huge chunks of the Welsh countryside.

These dramatic pictures show firefighters trying to deal with the grass fires, including one which at one point was six miles wide.

The lone firefighter walking through the charred scrubland sums up the battle fire crews have had to deal with since the start of the month.

From March 1, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service alone has attended 215 grass fires and 283 deliberately set fires across huge areas of land. There were another 35 deliberately lit grass fires in the South Wales Fire and Rescue area yesterday damaging over 198 hectares of Welsh countryside

One, at Pontsticill, Merthyr Tydfil, affected approximately 100 hectares of grass and scrubland on Monday.

Crews were sent to battle trees on fire near the reservoir in Pontsticill after being alerted to it at 10.39am and continued to be at the scene for several hours.

They then had to deal with a mountain fire in Waun y Pound, which was reported at 7.13pm.

The huge grass blaze at Pontsticill stretched up to six miles, with the fire being driven by high winds.

Fire crews battled through most of the day and worked with teams from Natural Resources Wales to bring the fire under control.

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It is the latest in a number of fires that have come with the recent good weather.

The South Wales fire service was called to 40 grass fires on Sunday - and all but one of them was started on purpose.

One fire, near Nantymoel at the head of the Ogmore Valley, damaged seven hectares, as did another deliberately set fire at Cwmparc, near Treorchy.

The Cwmparc fire came close to setting stables and sheds alight.

A mountain fire above Asda, Merthyr Tydfil, which was visible in the Pant area from A465, burned over night on Saturday.

A fire near Tylorstown, in Rhondda, led to 27,999 calls and damaged five hectares.

By 7pm on Sunday, firefighters had spent 15 hours fighting fires set on purpose.

Head of South Wales Fire & Rescue Service's Fire Control Jennie Griffiths, who has been tweeting updates throughout, said: "Its not funny, its not clever + there are innocent victims."

On Sunday, a fire at Hengoed got very close to houses, while crews were also called to Mountain Ash, Abercynon, Merthyr, Cwmbran, Pontypridd, Bedwas, Tynewydd, Treharris, Ynyswen, Penrhys, Blaencwm, Abertysswg, Ynysyboeth and Cwm.

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© Alamy
Last week, the team had deployed crews from the Fire Crime Unit in Caerau area of Maesteg after signs of deliberate fire setting.

A spokesman for the service said: "We have seen a significant rise in wildfire incidents across the organisation.

"The Fire Crime Unit proactively monitors all police and fire data from the previous night and then interrogates this data for incident trends.

"As a result of this interrogation of incident intelligence The Fire Crime Unit have deployed high visibility patrols across the area to deter and gather intelligence on the perpetrators, these patrols will run up to the services planned seasonal Easter Initiative 'Project Bernie' which aims to tackle such issues in the designated Bernie areas in RCT, Merthyr, Bridgend & Caerphilly Unitary Authorities.

Unfortunately this type of activity (Deliberate fire setting) is a common theme during this time of year and The Fire Crime Unit along with the South Wales & Gwent Police, and the Local Authorities are working hard in partnership to reduce and change behaviours to eradicate these acts of criminality."