Firefighters still battling North York Moors blaze with houses 30 miles away affected
Firefighters have been battling a blaze on the North York Moors, close to the RAF Fylingdales early warning station since Monday.
On Friday, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said nine crews were continuing to tackle the blaze, plus another two dealing with a separate outbreak close to the A171 Scarborough to Whitby road, which had to be closed at one point.
The smoke appeared to have reached the city of York and residents there have been urged to close their windows.
At its height, 20 pumps were at the scene and a helicopter was used to try to control the blaze, as the fire service declared a major incident.
The service said on Friday: 'We have nine fire engines at the incident on Langdale Moor.
'We're getting a lot of calls reporting smoke in and around York which we believe may be from this incident.
'We continue to advise people to keep their doors and windows shut if they are impacted by smoke.
'We also have two fire engines at the incident on the A171 near the Flask Inn.'
There were also reports of people in the Malton area being affected by the smoke from the moor fire, 15 miles to the north.
The blaze covered an area of more than two square miles at its height.
This included an area which is on an old range and an Army explosive ordnance disposal team was called to the scene because of munitions in the area.
The fire service said earlier this week: 'We have precautions in place for our crews at the scene, but people may hear explosions.'
It said on Thursday that it did not know the cause of the fire.
Firefighters also thanked people for their donations of water, other drinks and snacks which have been delivered to their base in the village of Goathland.
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The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Unlike any other kind of fear': wildfires leave their mark across Spain
On Saturday, the people of Paüls will celebrate the feast of their patron saint, Sant Roc, with a mass, followed by a communal meal eaten at stone tables, jota folk dances and a profound and lingering sense of relief. Last month's wildfire – which turned the night skies a hellish orange, blackened the surrounding hills and devoured 3,300 hectares (8,154 acres) of land – was a near-disaster that stirred memories of the 2009 blaze in nearby Horta de Sant Joan that killed five firefighters. 'People were afraid that everything would burn and that they'd lose everything,' says Enric Adell, the mayor of the small Catalan mountain town. 'They were scared of getting trapped and not being able to get out of the village.' The fear of a fire like that, he adds, is unlike any other kind of fear. 'We've been through a pandemic and a nationwide power cut and torrential rains, but a fire on this scale was something else – as was the aftermath,' says Adell. In the hills above the village square, the charred trees are a reminder of what could have happened without the bravery of hundreds of firefighters, one of whom, Antonio Serrano, lost his life. Changing winds and sheer luck also played a part. 'When a fire hits,' says the mayor, 'it really leaves its mark.' This summer's fires have already left their mark across the length and breadth of Spain, from Galicia and Castilla y León in the north-west to Catalonia in the north-east, from the smart suburbs outside Madrid to Extremadura in the south-west, and all the way down to the beaches of Tarifa in Andalucía. As well as panic and the increasingly familiar tang of smoke, this year's fires have brought with them a sense of deja vu. The hot, deadly summer of 2022 yielded images that laid bare Spain's huge vulnerability as the effects of the climate emergency became increasingly plain. Footage that went around the world that July showed Ángel Martín, a 53-year-old man from Tábara in Castilla y León, using one of his excavators to try to stop the fires in the Sierra de la Culebra reaching the town. In the video, the machine is engulfed by the flames before Martín runs out of the inferno, the clothes burning off his frame. Martín, a much-loved figure in Tábara, suffered burns to 80% of his body and died in hospital three months later. Three years on, Spain is once again on the defensive. 'The fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention,' the country's environment minister, Sara Aagesen, told Cadena Ser radio this week. 'Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalise those resources.' As politicians engage in blame games, experts warn, once again, that all the bickering over the number of water-dumping planes misses the point. The current spate of fires, they add, was entirely predictable and underlines the need for a fundamental rethink of land use and management in a continent that is on the frontline of the climate emergency. 'This year's fires are basically on the same level as those we saw in 2022 and 2023,' says Marc Castellnou, the head of forestry for the Catalan regional fire department and a fire analyst at the University of Lleida. 'Since 2017, we've seen this change towards more extreme fires … It's nothing new – and it's happening because climate change is bringing higher temperatures for much longer periods.' The dynamics are not hard to discern. If you have annual heatwaves that arrive one after the other – and last longer and longer – in a country where decades of rural depopulation have left huge areas of land untended, overgrown or given over to homogenous cultivation, then you will have massive fires that are getting harder to fight. As one Spanish scientist noted earlier this week: 'We have all the ingredients for the molotov cocktail we're seeing right now.' Cristina Montiel, a professor at Madrid's Complutense University and an expert in forest fires and land use, says that while Spain's firefighters and other emergency services are doing an 'extraordinarily magnificent' job that is keeping far greater disasters at bay, the problem lies with society as a whole. Despite the annual fires and the abundance of evidence, she says, 'it turns out that we are not – and we do not want to be – aware of the danger in which we're living'. If we were even a little aware, she adds, 'we would take the measures and decisions to protect ourselves'. Fifty years ago, says Montiel, most forest fires were intentional. But today's forest fires are increasingly caused by accidents or negligence and are spreading so voraciously because of two factors: landscape change and climate change. It is an explosive combination. This year's heavy spring rains led to an increase in plant growth that has now been dried out by successive heatwaves, leaving all that combustible vegetation, much of it in neglected areas, ready to serve as fuel for the fires. The situation is further complicated by the phenomenon of 'flash droughts', which can quickly dry out even well-irrigated agricultural land, and which are likely to become more common as global heating continues. Paüls is a case in point. Its population has dwindled over the decades and fewer and fewer people in the area work the land because of the shrinking economic rewards. 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Arcarons says that depopulation – and decreasing dependence on woodlands for building material and grazing since the 1960s – has caused what was once a patchwork of vineyards, olive groves and wheat fields to revert to dense forest. Fast-growing and highly flammable pines dominated, undergrowth flourished and this, combined with climate change and more frequent and longer periods of drought, has led to fires that are extremely difficult to control. 'It's like a chimney,' says Arcarons. 'If you keep throwing wood on the fire eventually the chimney will catch fire and the house will burn down.' Castellnou agrees that without adapting our landscapes to the realities of climate breakdown, we are sealing our fate. 'There's no point talking about more aeroplanes,' he says. 'If we limit our capacity for extinguishing fires by thinking we just need enough equipment to put them out then we're creating an unsustainable, artificial situation for summer after summer of extreme weather.'
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Why wildfires in Spain and Portugal are having an impact on weather in the UK
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The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
Saharan dust cloud & Spain wildfire smoke blanket UK in Met Office satellite map – as temps to hit 30C this weekend
BRITAIN'S skies are not as bright blue today - and the Met Office has revealed the reason why, though there's a potential bonus coming. It's thanks to smoke from wildfires in Spain and Portugal, as well as Saharan dust that's "drifted over the UK". 5 5 5 But there is a potential upside - the national weather agency said Brits can expect "enhanced sunsets and sunrises in the coming days", adding: "Deeper reds and oranges thanks to light scattering." It comes as thousands of people are expected to flock to beaches across this weekend with forecasts of up to 29C on Sunday. As Brits head into Saturday evening, the forecaster predicts it will be a mainly dry night with the clearest skies appearing in the west. While most parts of the UK will remain dry, it's expected that some light rain will fall across the Shetland Islands. Cloud will build up across central and eastern areas, but will be less extensive than Friday night. Winds in the southwest will remain strong across some parts. Low cloud will gradually retreat towards the North Sea coastal areas as Sunday day gets underway, leaving most places to bask in plenty of sunshine. The strong winds in the southwest though will continue. While it will be very warm once again for most people, it will feel fresher along the eastern coast. Looking further ahead into Monday and the early part of the working week it looks to be more of the same. Little-known iPhone trick helps you dodge surprise rain with last-minute warning Any early morning cloud in the east will break up, giving way to sunny spells. Western parts could see some showers but it will be the warmest part of the country with winds easing off. Yellow warnings have been put in place for various areas of the country by the UK Health Security Agency. This includes Yorkshire and the Humber, the East and West Midlands, London and the South East, the South West and the east of England. Heat health alerts have also been extended into next week for much of England. The hot weather has resulted in a surge of vehicle breakdowns, the RAC reports. They have received 10 per cent more call outs this week when compared to the same period of Monday to Thursday last week. The yellow warnings are set to remain in place until 6pm on Monday, August 18. 5 5
