Helicopters with water supplies are again on their way to an area of Killarney National Park today where a wildfire, caused by “human activity” and “not nature”, burned 20 hectares of habitat last night.
The N71 Ring of Kerry Road between Molls Gap and Muckross House remains closed again following the large wildfire in the Five Mile Bridge/Moll’s Gap area of the park over recent days. Alternative routes have been advised.
Minister of State with special responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, Christopher O’Sullivan said the fire was not a “natural disaster” but had been caused by human activity.
Several units of the Killarney fire service have been battling the blaze with firefighters from Kenmare, Killorglin and other towns alongside the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
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Two helicopters with water buckets also worked to bring it under control.
O’Sullivan said he took a “zero tolerance attitude” towards people lighting fires in national parks and wild places.
“For days, the National Parks and Wildlife Service has been battling fires, including incidents believed to have been started by the reckless use of disposable barbecues. This is utterly unacceptable,” the Fianna Fáil TD said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Lighting fires or using disposable barbecues in a National Park or any wild area is not carelessness, it is gross irresponsibility – especially during a heatwave. It is a crime against nature, against local communities and against future generations who have the right to inherit these precious landscapes intact.”
O’Sullivan said people should “leave these places as you found them or better, and leave no trace”.
“As Minister for Nature, I take a zero-tolerance attitude towards lighting fires in our national parks and wild places. The damage to biodiversity, wildlife, livelihoods and public safety can be – and too often is – catastrophic.
“My heartfelt thanks go to the NPWS staff, firefighters and emergency services who have worked tirelessly, often in extremely difficult conditions, to contain this fire and protect one of Ireland’s greatest natural assets.”
Dermot Brannigan, the chair of the Chief Fire Officers Association, encouraged the public to remain “mindful, vigilant and careful” when out in natural habitats during the current warm weather and to be conscious of the impact of human actions.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland in reaction to a number of fires in counties Kerry, Cork and Westmeath, Brannigan said most of the fires had been accidentally started, with people discarding glass or disposable barbecue sets not being extinguished and discarded properly.
“The message that we need to get across this morning, and for the next number of weeks during this lovely fine weather spell that we are having, is that we be mindful and be vigilant and be careful when you’re out in our natural habitat, and be conscious of the impact that it can have.”
Most local authority fire services have responded to a significant number of gorse fires in the last number of weeks due to this prolonged spell of dry weather, he said.
“It is anticipated that if this spell of dry weather continues, that we will have to respond to a number of similar types of calls, albeit that most of these incidents are relatively small and localised in nature, involving predominantly gorse and grassland,” he said.
Brannigan explained that with prolonged periods of dry weather, the susceptibility to fire increases. “I would be mindful that Ireland is not like Europe in many ways, or central Europe. In our vegetation generally, the sap rises between maybe March and May, which is probably the most vulnerable periods for the fire service, gorse fire periods.
“A prolonged period, and I’m speaking in periods of several weeks, can intensify the ignitability of gorse or wildland, and then hence cause the fire very quickly. And I think the upland nature of any particular fire, or prolonged exposure to fire, can intensify very quickly. So wind, heat, all have an intensifying factor in relation to fires of this particular nature.”
