Holme Fen blaze unprecedented for Cambridgeshire fire chiefs
The fire began almost two weeks ago
Two of Cambridgeshire's most senior fire chiefs have said what's happening at Holme Fen near Peterborough is unprecedented.
"We've never seen anything like this in Cambridgeshire before, in my 22 years working for the organisation," Stuart Smith, assistant chief fire officer at the county's fire service (CFRS), said.
While Matthew Warren - the service's chief fire officer - said he's "never known a fire that's gone on for this long with this amount of resources."
Around 90 acres of woodland have been lost to the blaze, which started nearly two weeks ago, with up to 10,000 litres of water being used to dampen the smoke every minute according to CFRS.
The fire involves an area measuring around 60 football pitches and is deep seated in peat.
Peat fires can spread underground and are “notoriously difficult to extinguish”, the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire has said.
'Three to four week' plan
Mr Smith said pockets of smoke are lying underneath fallen trees, and that fire crews are digging trenches to identify how deep these fires are.
"(It will take) three to four weeks to remove the trees that will give us enough access to deal with the fire that's underground; if we can't remove the trees, we can't deal with the fire," he said.
"It's really challenging under foot, big craters being created from the burning peat; you could take three steps forward and disappear.
"If our plan works, this site will be completely cleared and we would extinguish the fire within three to four weeks; if we get heavy rain, thunderstorms and the ground starts to get boggy, we can't get the diggers in to do the work."
The fire started on August 8, with more than 80 firefighters on scene including from neighbouring fire and rescue services during the operation that has followed.
Jake Banks from Merseyside Fire and Rescue is one of those to have been called in to help as part of a national resilience programme, where fire crews from further afield are drafted in to support major incidents.
He told us firefighters believe the blaze is now under control.
"But that first week was extremely arduous; we had an area involving six to 10 foot of peat underground which was well alight," Jack said.
"We were working in 38 degrees plus in fire kit, with 20 to 30 foot flames all around us."
Experts are also warning that the damage at Holme Fen will be seen for decades after wildfires have scorched the land.
Birds, small mammals, and plants have already been lost but those surviving species could now be wiped out due to loss of habitat.
"Sometimes rare species with delicate specialised habitats may be completely lost because there's no mechanism for them to be repopulated," Tony Cook, from the Peterborough Environmental City Trust, said.
"It can often seem a very bleak situation but there are things we can do; we can prioritise areas and set those aside for nature which is essentially what Holme Fen is, so you need more of that capacity."
Firefighters have been checking for hotspots and dampening down the area, and advising people who are still seeing or smelling smoke in the area that it is “likely still coming from Holme Fen”.
Mr Warren said up to 40 firefighters are now attending the fire with plans to scale back the number of crews at the scene.
And with that, he is already thinking about next steps.
"We still have about seven fire engines on site every day at the moment, the challenge is a large part of it is underground, so we're observing for hotspots to make sure it doesn't flare up," he added.
"The incident is much more controlled, so we look to lower resources on site and go to more of a watching brief, and then ultimately, for me to take forward is what does resilience look like in the future? What does funding and my resources need to look like?"