General Chat

People have been forced to leave their homes.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/major-incident-declared-as-wildfire-rages-within-metres-of-homes_uk_5b32b4b6e4b0b5e692f23473?zg9&utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage


Stalybridge cemetery is also alight:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/heatwave-sparks-wildfire-at-stalybridge-cemetery-near-manchester_uk_5b327d64e4b0b745f1785ab1?i7&utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

How dreadful, I hope the houses will be safe and no one hurt. I hope too that the fire in the cemetery can be contained and extinguished soon.

Lizxx

WOW!

that's near where I grew up :-(

I saw in the MailOnLine last night that there was a fire there, but hadn't realised it had become so bad.


Saddleworth Moor of course is where Ian Brady and Myra Hindley buried some bodies .............. we could see the rough area from the house where I lived.

It's awful. Fortunately no human victims, but all that wildlife.... :-(

So sad! I walked over those moors as a teenager when I was a member of the YMCA, training for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

On one occasion, a group of us were asked by Police to help them in the search for further victims of Brady and Hindley :-(

Good grief, Allan

As bad as OH's cousin who was in a search and rescue crew that was sent up to Lockerbie :-(

I was teaching away from Oldham in 1964-67

Where the surface fire has been put out, the peat is still burning underground. What is really needed is a jolly good spell of torrential rain to dampen things down.

The army has been brought in, now. :-(

But not the famous grouse shooters

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/27/moors-grouse-shooting-saddleworth-fire-sport-land

The peat fire could smoulder away for months.

It could, Sylvia. They may have to get diggers in when the top fire's out.

when we have forest fires here, the fire often disappears underground, will lie there over the winter but then flare up again in the spring ............. the same thing could happen on the moors

The RAF are now doing the job we see them all too often doing here, helicopters dropping water from slings. :-(

Thinking of all those around the area and those helping out <3 <3

My sentiments also Mersey <3 <3

No water tankers??

No helicopters with large buckets????

Perhaps we should send you proper air water support for attacking fires!

They are using helicopters Sylvia, scooping up water from reservoirs to drop on land in the same way that they scoop water from the sea to drop on Zakynthos fires.

Have they not used tankers? Often they and their miles of hosing are more susceptible to jumping fires though. (Is that the kind of tanker you mean?)

No doubt they'll be back-burning too to try to contain the fires.

Life, of course, will take precedence as plant life will regenerate fairly quickly.

Joy ..............

we use helicopters that have a HUGE bucket dangling form a long line, scoops up water from a lake, then drop it over a fire.

We have airplane tankers ........ huge planes that have been adapted or specially built with doors in their bellies, so they can skim the surface of a lake and scoop up water into their "bellies", the doors then close, a fire suppressant is added and the the plane flies over the fire, belly doors open and the water + suppressant is dropped over the fire.


Some photos in this Wiki article ........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_firefighting


Canada and the US both have fleets of these 2 types, and they have been sent down to Australia during their fire season (our winter).

It's quite the sight!!

The plant life might not regenerate quickly .................

if the fire is very hot, it will burn the soil as well as the plant material. This happened in some parts of the huge fires we had last summer in BC. Basically all that is left is ash, no nutrients, etc.

If the fire gets down into the peat, it will burn for months or years, that peat has taken centuries to develop.

UK doesn't have those Sylvia because a fire like this is a very rare occurrence.

The RAF doesn't have squadrons of aircraft these days.

They are lucky to find enough army to help.