Wildfires continue to rage in UK with a new woodland blaze in Scotland

BBC
Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:12 UTC

© Solway Press Services

Fire crews tackle woodland blaze near Dalbeattie

Fire crews have spent several hours bringing a blaze under control in the south of Scotland countryside.

They were called out at about 17:30 on Monday to the incident between Southwick Forest and Edingham Farm, near Dalbeattie.

It took more than 30 firefighters from six units more than eight hours to bring the fire under control.

Police sealed off a number of roads in the area to allow emergency vehicles to get access to the incident.

Comment: Back on 29th May three large wildfires broke out in different locations in Scotland, and since then there have been fires reported every day, all over the UK, but particularly the northern regions. The current fires are being blamed on the fact that it hasn't rained for over 50 days and its one of the longest - but not the hottest - heatwaves for over 40 years. So that still makes one wonder what contributed to the fires in Scotland which occurred well over a month ago.

Whether all these fires can be attributed solely to arson is still up for question, but regardless, this is highly unusual for the UK:

• 'Biggest fire in living memory': Moorland blaze reignites and rages for days in Saddleworth, UK
• Firefighters battle for second day three large wildfires which broke out in different areas of Scotland's west coast
• Another fire scorches through moorland parched by heatwave in Bradford, UK
• Two more fires hit north-west England during heatwave
• New fire erupts in different area of UK's moorlands, second in recent days, smoke seen for miles