Fire Service Thanks Farmers and On-Call Staff for Moorland Fire Support

North Yorkshire's farmers and on call fire fighters have been praised by the fire service for their help tackling the moorland blaze on Langdale Moor.

The blaze increased on Monday afternoon, with a number of roads closed that night and into Tuesday.

Firefighters are working to put fire breaks in at the scene. They have 9 appliances plus special appliances at the scene and partner agencies are assisting with drones.

Area Manager, Ben Illsley, says local farmers have been a great help.

"I can't thank the farmers enough. Their work ethic, their can do, their rallying around bringing this incident to a close has been pivotal in preventing further fire spread.

They've been supporting operations by delivering water to the scene by putting slurry down to dampen ground by doing some basic work in terms of cutting back potential, further combustible materials.

They've been a massive support and I can't thank them enough"

Local fire crews from Scarborough, Whitby and Pickering have been heavily involved in tacking the moorland fire near Fylingdales over the last fortnight.

Ben Illsley says they've been supported by crews from across the county both to tackle the blaze and provide backfill cover for the usual day to day call outs.

"We use the nearest crews that are available. So all the crews to the east of the county, including Whitby, Pickering  have attended.

But we rotate the crews on a regular basis for their welfare and relief. So we have seen an attendance from as far to the other end of the county as Bentham.

We have used fire fights from nearly all areas of North Yorkshire and we've balanced fire cover around the rest of the county.

So. It hasn't been, all our resources are at the job. We have maintained a suitable level of fire cover, although it has been a challenge throughout the last week. 

We've been brilliantly supported throughout this incident by partner agencies such as the MOD, the Forestry Commission Private Contractors, gamekeepers Yorkshire Water, and a big shout out to the local farming community who provide brilliant support on scene throughout.

Ben says the fire fighting effort would not have been possible without the team of on-call firefighters across North Yorkshire:

"70% of our fire covering in North Yorkshire rescue service is on call.

So on call firefighters are brilliant people who have primary employment, most of them that give up significant periods of their time to be available via an alerter and have provided amazing commitment during this period of time.

What we're trying to do is we get more to the protracted stage of the incident is make more use of our, so the majority of the crews attending the scene now are our whole time and day crewed firefighters.

But when you're at point last week where we had 19 appliances attending the incident, it does mean that significant number of people from our organization across the county are either attending the scene or providing a backfill to a wholetime fire station where the whole time crews have attended.

The commitment they already give in terms of around their primary employment, their families, and their private life is incredible. But at times like this, again, I can't commend our on call firefighters enough.

We won't have a fire service without them. And they're over and above during this period has been fantastic and we appreciate them. We'd love to see them praised as much as possible for what cover they've provided."

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