Photograph: Andrew Percy MP, Nick Grainger (Group Commander), Paul McCourt from Humberside Fire Brigade and Julian Small from Natural England
Local MP Andrew Percy visited Goole Moor last week to see for himself the devastation presently being wrought by a fire on the Moor covering some 100 or so acres. Andrew received a briefing from Humberside Fire Brigade’s Incident Manager and was taken to see for himself how the brigade are fighting the fire. Along with Thorne and Crowle Moors, Goole Moor forms part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve and is managed by Natural England.
The fire has been burning for more than a week and has required attendance from fire crews across Humberside including, Goole, Epworth, Hull and Immingham.
Andrew says, "I wanted to see for myself the damage this fire is causing to this nationally important conservation habitat. Visiting the site I was struck by the scale of the fire which seemed to be burning for as far as the eye could see.
I was briefed on the efforts to fight the fire by both Humberside Fire Brigade and Natural England who are working closely to tackle this blaze. Apparently, one of the biggest challenges has been getting water to this somewhat remote location. Sadly, the site isn’t suitable for large fire tenders and so a great deal of improvisation has been required.
Our firefighters are working incredibly hard to tackle this blaze and I pay tribute to them for working in what are quite difficult circumstances. They told me that they were hoping to tackle the blaze by effectively ‘flooding’ the site with water on a quarter by quarter basis. With a lot of dry peat around this is quite some challenge.
Let’s hope this fire can be extinguished and that we can then get on with restoring this important habitat.”