Wildfire in Suffolk.

[Rituelec]

I am feeling so sad about the wildfire in Suffolk at Dunwich Heath.

I don't live too far away, a few miles. This feels very close to home and I just feel sadness for the ecosystem and animals right now.

Very scary.

Perhaps the real question is why are all the wildfires in the UK currently burning on National trust or RSPB land?

oh yes it’s mismanagement again. When will people wake up that the environmentalists have got it wrong. Their experiments have failed. Biodiversity on their sites is lower than on traditionally managed moors/heathland. Fire load is way higher. And they have put people’s lives/ homes/ jobs at risk. Not to mention the millions of insects / plants / animals that have died and been lost as a result of fires caused by their catastrophic mismanagement.

It’s so sad 😢. Living in Suffolk you grow up learning about Dunwich and going on school trips there. I think everyone is slightly concerned about how close it is to Sizewell now (about 3 miles) but they have released a statement saying how they’re supporting local services. Farmers have also been recruited to support. Really hoping it gets under control tonight- it’s looking cloudy and stormy in Ipswich at the moment but annoyingly it’s very breezy which won’t be helpful.

They don't dig fire breaks.

Cloudy now but sadly I don't think rain :(

No, I don’t think so either, windy and so dry isn’t it.

The complacency and lackadaisical
attitudes on here are astounding

What do you expect people to do?

I'm in Hampshire or I'd happily go out with a bucket of water! 🙄

People forget that when there’s masses of firefighters fighting these fires, there’s less appliances available for “normal” incidents. So you get involved in a RTC, your house is on fire etc, it’s going to take much longer for them to arrive.

Yes we have two paid engines in our city the rest are volunteer.

Just today one area of our city had three deliberate fires started within three hours.

Now I live close to a volunteer station but that means nothing right now with them being called out to field fires as there are so many farms and nature areas locally keep magically catching fire. (East Anglia)

Ive got my hoses ready to plug in should the need arise that I need to start spraying my own land as we have had fires deliberately started at the back of the land before.

Worst case again we slice the pool and dump over 10,000 ltrs across the garden at the back of the house pretty much instantly.

it is so worrying

I thought the same and its worrying, especially in a rural county where stations will be further apart. Apparently there's 6 engines form London heading over to help.

There's no end of us locals who want to 'do something' but right now we can't. Roads are closed anyway. The professionals are dealing with it - firefighters and landworkers - and the Sally Army tea wagon too apparently (definitely deserve a round of applause).

Hopefully there will be an opportunity to show some post-fire support. Dunwich is part of who we are around here.

We are close too and it’s very upsetting. The poor little critters 😢

One of the images shows the national trust cottages with flames behind them, I so hope they survive.

The firefighters and folks of Westleton are amazing

I think anyone caught starting a fire has to spend a very long time in prison.

Looked really close to coastguard cottages. :(

Really strong smoke smell this evening! Feels very scary

The wildfires in South Wales aren't. They're on traditionally managed heathland.

What do you mean?

I really hope today is a better day :(

I understood the comment to be about people say things along the lines of

“oh this is normal/ natural/ regenerative and we have this every year where I live you people will just have to get used to it / the regrowth will be wonderful.”

Those comments are fundamentally not understanding what is happening here.

My parents live very nearby - I explored minsmere for hours on end every summer as a child and it’s heartbreaking to see the devastation.

my parents’ village is not currently directly affected but they are worried - they are surrounded by fields that would go up quickly with very little hope of stopping them reaching houses within a couple of hours.

I've seen some pictures this morning and the fire brigade have done a fab job of keeping the fire away from homes and businesses. It got close, but it didn't get them.

It seems that everything has been destroyed. Absolutely everything. There was little enough natural habitat in this area before, because it is surrounded by intense arable farming. The construction of the new Sizewell C was also causing devastation, despite what the publicity about it has been trying to maintain.

What we had has gone. All gone and it’s devastating.

Please, if anybody was going to say “oh it will regenerate it will be wonderful when there is regrowth“. Stop. Please just stop. You have absolutely no grasp of the complete destruction that has occurred. It was home to nightjars, warblers, avocets and so many more. They now have nowhere to go.

It’s heartbreaking. Everything that we treasured and that so many of us treasured has gone.

I saw someone ask earlier why there are no animal rescue on site and they got an answer back. There is nothing to rescue.

Yes. Catastrophic. It's gone. Burnt right down the clifftop. So fortunate that the beach then stopped it - if it had been inland then the westerly winds we've had would have sent it further that way too and the massive effort of the fire crews would have been even more stretched.

Looking the opposite way.