Fires on Winter Hill

[Slid]

I live an easy walking distance from Winter Hill (TV Mast, Manx Air Crash) and have spent some happy hours walking mainly on the Southern Eastern section of the Hill. Today there are two main fires - one at Rivington -on the exact opposite side of the Hill and one along the side of the Bolton - Belmont Road. Loads and loads of sight-see-ers out and parked up along the A675, with picnics, cameras, tripods, the full monty. Lots of Fire crews, a Helicopter, picking up water in a large ball shaped object from a local reservoir. People everywhere.

As there has been no lightning around here the last week, both (or more likely all) the fires were started through deliberate malice or deliberate ignorance. Don't know whether to feel sad or angry. Can't arbitrate between malice and ignorance either. Both are as bad.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

We get our TV pictures from winter Hill the video below was taken yesterday.

manchester evening news - Winter Hill TV mast fire: Police arrest 22-year-old on suspicion of arson - https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...hester-news/winter-hill-tv-mast-fire-14845040

LancashireFire
Published on 29 Jun 2018
Footage taken from day one and two of the Winter Hill moorland fire that Lancashire Fire and Rescue were called to on June 28th 2018. Drone footage is supplied by the LFRS Aerial Support Unit and the footage also features the Airbourne Solutions helicopter who were also in attendance on the 29th June and are contracted by our partners United Utilities.

 

[Linalmeemow]

I walked over there years ago, grew up not far away. I believe they've arrested someone for arson.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I walked over there years ago, grew up not far away. I believe they've arrested someone for arson.

Manchester evening news - Winter Hill TV mast fire: Police arrest 22-year-old on suspicion of arson

 

[Linalmeemow]

Manchester evening news - Winter Hill TV mast fire: Police arrest 22-year-old on suspicion of arson

They should be made to work community service every weekend at their current hourly rate until the cost of fighting the fires has been covered.

 

[Slid]

As ever, the pictures give no real sense of the enormous scale of the fires. At least a kilometre long on "my" side of the hill, the one with the Helicopter water drops.

These sort of events are circa 25 years apart. I recall as a boy living in Glossop a bad moorland fire that burned for some time as it had ignited the underlying peat.

There was a similar fire on Winter Hill about 20-25 years ago, so perhaps something that does recur naturally. The Hill, which is quite a sizable and lowly sloping lump of rock, is used mainly for sheep farming these days. There is no grouse shooting that I am aware of.

Burning off the low lying scrub to make conditions better for Grouse is a well known start point for fires on this type of moorland, but that can't be the cause here.

 

[Slid]

They should be made to work community service every weekend at their current hourly rate until the cost of fighting the fires has been covered.

Yes, I do admire the sentiment, but the arithmetic tells me that that would be until slightly beyond the end of their time on this or any other planet.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I missed this yesterday -



A major incident has been declared as the fires on Winter Hill and Scout Road near Bolton have merged.

Emergency services are in attendance and the following roads have been closed:

• Scout Road
• Belmont Road
• Smithills Dean Road
• Longshore Ford Road
• Walker Fold Road at the junction with Chorley Old Road
• Georges Lane at the junction with Matchmoor Lane
• Marklands Road at the junction with Georges Lane
• Old Rake at the junction with Georges Lane
• Belmont Road at the junction with Rivington Terraced Gardens

Police strongly urge motorists and pedestrians to adhere to ALL road closure signs as they are there for your safety.

They are also in place to ensure that emergency services have clear access to continue tackling the fire.
Please follow @LancashireFRS for further updates.

https://www.cumbriacrack.com/2018/0...as-fires-on-winter-hill-and-scout-road-merge/

 

[divrack]

we get these Moor fires all the time up here in Scotland, but the criminals get rewarded as the destruction to the ecology is compensated for by rich morons that feel great when they manage to shoot one of the dumbest birds around after it's been herded towards them...
plus we all get to pay huge tax subsidies to these mega rich aristocrats for the privilege of having our country ruined.

 

[MmmBeer]

I was working in Portugal a couple of years back, in temperatures of over 40°C and there were forest fires everywhere, some close to where we were working. Our local guides told us that many of the fires were lit deliberately for insurance purposes.

 

[Slid]

I missed this yesterday -



A major incident has been declared as the fires on Winter Hill and Scout Road near Bolton have merged.

Emergency services are in attendance and the following roads have been closed:

• Scout Road
• Belmont Road
• Smithills Dean Road
• Longshore Ford Road
• Walker Fold Road at the junction with Chorley Old Road
• Georges Lane at the junction with Matchmoor Lane
• Marklands Road at the junction with Georges Lane
• Old Rake at the junction with Georges Lane
• Belmont Road at the junction with Rivington Terraced Gardens

Police strongly urge motorists and pedestrians to adhere to ALL road closure signs as they are there for your safety.

They are also in place to ensure that emergency services have clear access to continue tackling the fire.
Please follow @LancashireFRS for further updates.

https://www.cumbriacrack.com/2018/0...as-fires-on-winter-hill-and-scout-road-merge/

Those are all the roads running around the hill, or into it. I think it is mainly to keep the idiots out of the way as opposed to the roads being dangerous, although I have kept well away, so cannot eye witness it..
Belmont road (the A675) is closed at the top of the road leading down to the estate I live on.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Not sure but I think you are probably right the emergency services need access and they don't want the roads blocked with idiots trying to get video.

 

[MarkBowie]

They’ve caught footage in the helicopter of other idiots trying to set more fires close to it. I really don’t understand these people...

 

[Duxuk]

I could see the flames from our back bedroom window the first night it took hold on Winter Hill. Since then a fire was started by some fallen trees on Healey Nab, my local hill. A helicopter dumped water to put it out. Reports suggest the scum were seen fleeing the scene. This is a wooded area and would take a generation or more to recover. At least the moors regenerate more quickly.
We saw a pair of willow tits in our garden for the first time and presumed they were escaping the area of the fire.

 

[Slid]

Had a walk up as far as the Dean Mills Reservoir this afternoon. That seems to have been the natural barrier along which the spread of the fires were finally stopped along this side of the hill.

As it has rained a fair bit of late there are a lot of green shoots through the blackened surface. I thought it looked quite uplifting, but I saw not a single other human soul outside a car.

The map link below sort of shows the geography. The brown bits on the ariel view are basically scrub that catches fire easily. They are currently essentially black.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...5df387a0590f17c!8m2!3d53.6132591!4d-2.4406688

 

[MmmBeer]

Had a walk up as far as the Dean Mills Reservoir this afternoon. That seems to have been the natural barrier along which the spread of the fires were finally stopped along this side of the hill.

As it has rained a fair bit of late there are a lot of green shoots through the blackened surface. I thought it looked quite uplifting, but I saw not a single other human soul outside a car.

The map link below sort of shows the geography. The brown bits on the ariel view are basically scrub that catches fire easily. They are currently essentially black.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...5df387a0590f17c!8m2!3d53.6132591!4d-2.4406688

Interesting comment about the green shoots, we think of forest and heathland fires as a human disaster, but to many plant species, fire is a natural part of their life cycle.

The redwood forests in California had been receding for a number of decades, until someone discovered that the precursor for the recession was the human intervention of extinguishing forest fires.

In the UK, although a rarer event, it probably still has a part to play in controlling plant selection.

 

[Slid]

Interesting comment about the green shoots, we think of forest and heathland fires as a human disaster, but to many plant species, fire is a natural part of their life cycle.

The redwood forests in California had been receding for a number of decades, until someone discovered that the precursor for the recession was the human intervention of extinguishing forest fires.

In the UK, although a rarer event, it probably still has a part to play in controlling plant selection.

I think there used to be Grouse Shooting on Winter Hill in the past and fire selects for heather, particularly the new growth that Grouse eat from choice/

 

[Slid]

With one thing and another, mainly breaking my left proximate humerus (i.e. left shoulder) on Boxing Day 2018, I have not been up on top of the hill very often in the meantime.

I strolled up today to the remaining Dean Mills Reservoir (the records say that two were created at the end of the 1700's to provide power for the water driven Dean Mills in the valley below at what is now Barrow Bridge village).

Still much evidence of the fires from last summer. Already the long term weather forecasts are for drought conditions again this year. Presumably the same individuals will be out with their match boxes in due course.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Presumably the same individuals will be out with their match boxes in due course.

Those portable barbecues should be banned from beauty spots they burn squares in the grass and cause fires and some of the brain donors that use them put them in the litter bins and set them on fire, we see this often round here.

.

 

[Slid]

Those portable barbecues should be banned from beauty spots they burn squares in the grass and cause fires and some of the brain donors that use them put them in the litter bins and set them on fire, we see this often round here.

.

That is interesting. I doubt I have ever seen a single portable (one-shot) barbecue on Winter Hill. I would imagine that they are the scourge of anywhere in the Lakes, though.