Burnham pledges support for crews tackling ‘very serious’ Suffolk wildfire

Firefighters tackling a wildfire near to a nuclear power station in Suffolk will have “all the support” they need, the Prime Minister has pledged.Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident after being called to reports of a blaze at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, shortly after 5.30pm on Wednesday.On Thursday afternoon, the service said the fire was ongoing and currently covered around 100 hectares, with 18 fire engines and more than 100 firefighters at the scene.Speaking to reporters during a visit in Cumbria, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: “We’ve got the situation under close monitoring, and I’m receiving regular updates.“It is a very serious incident.“I will make sure that Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service have all of the support, the mutual aid, the other services that they need, and any other resources that need to be brought to bear.”The fire is a few miles away from nuclear power station Sizewell B and the construction site for new power station Sizewell C.Jon Lacey, the chief fire officer for Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service, said Sizewell B was an area of concern but the fire is not currently expected to spread to the area.“We’re not expecting the wind direction to change to push the fire towards Sizewell C or B,” he told a press conference on Thursday, adding that the fire service is working with the Met Office and the Environment Agency to monitor weather conditions.“B is the main concern, but the big building site is also a priority for us.“The terrain and land between us, the fire, and Sizewell B and C means that it’s not a significant fire spread concern.Firefighters at the scene of a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston (Suffolk County Council/PA)PA Media“So at the moment, Sizewell B and C are being monitored. We’re in consultation with them, but we’re not worried about fire spread in that direction.”Read MoreMr Lacey also said the fire was “difficult and dangerous” to tackle, and one of the largest he can remember in Suffolk.“It is a difficult fire because they’re so widespread and the resources are so widespread,” he told the press conference.“And normally, with a building fire, you can see it right in front of you, in one place, whereas this is much larger.“You can understand that that is difficult and dangerous for firefighters.“It’s an ongoing incident. It’s very dynamic. It’s very challenging. Access to the incident is also very difficult.“It is definitely one of the more challenging incidents that we’ve had here in Suffolk, and is one of the largest that I remember in the history of Suffolk.”On Thursday, an EDF spokesperson said the fire was “not affecting operations at Sizewell B power station”.The energy supplier said it was “closely monitoring the situation” and it is understood Sizewell B has an emergency plan in place that covers a range of scenarios including a fire on site.Emergency services near the scene of a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston (Joe Giddens/PA)PA WireA spokesperson for Sizewell C said the construction site was also “closely monitoring” the fire, adding “it currently poses low risk to Sizewell C, given its distance from site and watercourses in between”.“Sizewell C sites and offices continue to operate as normal, but we are continuously assessing the impacts of smoke and the effects on the road network to ensure that our people remain safe and emergency services have priority,” they said.Suffolk County Council said Cliff House Holiday Park, containing some 200 caravans, had been completely evacuated as a precaution.Deputy leader of East Suffolk Council Paul Ashton said on Thursday afternoon the local community response to the incident had been “outstanding” but the fire was still “raging” and “not under control”.He said: “However, everybody that is in any risk, depending on how it spreads, has been evacuated.“So there’s getting on for a couple of hundred people from a caravan park, so both a combination of static caravans and tourers, most of those people have driven away and left. Just probably gone home.“We’ve got 40 people at Westleton – so Westleton Village Hall is acting as a rest centre.“The villagers of Westleton last night put up all of those people in their own homes, so all 47.“No-one had to sleep in the village hall. They’ve cooked them breakfast, they’ve cooked them lunch, they’re planning on what to get them for supper.”Smoke rises from the wildfire at Dunwich Heath (Suffolk County Council/PA)PA WireMr Ashton added: “I think the local community has been outstanding in their response, and I think all those affected are really appreciative of what the people of Westleton have done.”The fire service posted a video of damage caused by the blaze, which has spread to parts of RSPB Minsmere nature reserve, with the footage showing blackened trees and scorched ground.Speaking near the site, RSPB Suffolk area manager Adam Rowlands said the scale of the blaze was “unprecedented in living memory” and the damage was “quite devastating”.He said: “It’s been tinder dry so with the drought conditions, all the vegetation, the ground is extremely dry and so once this fire took off, it spread dramatically and quickly.“It’s spreading through the pine trees, so in places that’s 20 metres high.”Mr Rowlands said the affected land, some of which is managed by the National Trust and the RSPB, was home to rare wildlife including nightjars and it would take “more than a decade” for the habitat to recover.He added: “It’s been years of effort to get the habitats in such good condition.Firefighters at the scene of a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston (Suffolk County Council/PA)PA Media“You know, the record numbers of nightjars and Dartford warblers and nightingales breeding on the site this summer – so years of hard work to get those bird populations to really evolve, and then absolutely devastated and wiped out by this one event, so it’s really heartbreaking for the team and all the effort they do.”Green Party leader Zack Polanski called for Mr Burnham to host an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the outbreak of wildfires in Britain, including in Suffolk.“Across the country terrifying wildfires are raging, forcing people to leave their homes not knowing what they will come back to find,” Mr Polanski said.“Thousands of people have been killed by deadly temperatures in the most extreme heatwaves we’ve ever faced.“And yet our Prime Minister is silent in the face of this existential threat.“Burnham should call a Cobra meeting and set out urgently how his Government will keep people safe amid this crisis.”Temperatures soared across parts of the UK on Wednesday, reaching into the 30s in some places.Separately, in Scotland, crews said they were making “significant progress” tackling a wildfire in the Cairngorms that broke out two weeks ago.A number of homes in the remote region were evacuated as plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, and vast swathes of trees, heather and grasslands have been left charred and blackened.