Firefighters are assessing how to tackle a wildfire that is still burning on Slievenamon in Tipperary after crews retreated from the mountain overnight due to safety concerns. Efforts by those crews on Monday kept the fire relatively contained, and overnight fog has helped tame it, leading a senior fire service official to say this morning there was no imminent threat to residents.
The official said the cause of the wildfire may never be known.
Carol Kennedy, acting assistant fire chief, told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that crews from Clonmel, Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir were still at the site, monitoring and assessing damage.
The fire started as a wild gorse fire and, because vegetation “is like kindling at the moment”, it spread into an oak plantation, but fire breaks kept it relatively contained. Fire crews were taken off the mountain last night for their safety, she said.
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“As you could understand, when it gets dark, the conditions up there underfoot can be quite dangerous,“ Kennedy said. “And there was very little we could do at that time of the night. So they retreated to the end of the mountain. The priority then was to protect life and property.
“It is still burning, and there is still quite a lot of work to do, but thankfully the fog came in around 4am, which really helped to subdue the fire. So at the moment what we’re doing is assessing it from an aerial point of view and then coming up with a plan on how we’re going to go back up the mountain and tackle it.”
Kennedy said there was no threat to residents at present, but she encouraged people to keep windows and doors shut owing to the amount of smoke in the area. Anyone with respiratory issues should also exercise caution, she said.
“On a fire like this, we may never know what caused it because of the extent of the fire and the damage afterwards. All I can say is the dry weather and the heatwave does affect the growth of the fire, so we just need to be very careful about when we are using nature and barbecues and rubbish and all that, that we take them behind with us. We may never know the actual cause of this fire.”
Kennedy welcomed the drop in temperature today, which, she said, would help fight the fire.
