Busy day for firefighters despite repeated warnings about grass fires

At its height, crews from seven stations were involved in tackling a fire involving grass and undergrowth off Jubilee Way South.

Crews from Mansfield, Blidworth, Edwinstowe, Warsop, Shirebrook and Kirkby’s Ashfield station were in attendance, alongside a water carrier from Worksop, yesterday evening, Sunday, July 24.

A Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service spokesman said before 8pm: “Please avoid the area while we work hard to extinguish the fire.”

An a spokesman from Ashfield station said later that night about the incident, ‘close to Mansfield Rugby Club’: “After lots of hard work by everyone involved and good timing for the rain to come the fire was extinguished.”

It was the second fire in the area in a matter of hours.

Crews from Mansfield and Blidworth used a hose-reel jet, beaters and water backpacks to extinguish the ‘fire in the open near to Jubilee Way’ at about 3pm.

It comes as police and firefighters in Mansfield team up to highlight the problem of deliberate fires, following a number in the area – including one at about 9.30am yesterday in the Strawberry Hill area, near Rainworth.

Crews used water backpacks and beaters to extinguish the fire, in a similar location to several previous blazes.

At about 11.30am yesterday, a crew from Ashfield ‘attended reports of a fire in the open in Kirkby’. About 10 sq metres of grass and undergrowth was alight and ‘firefighters used a hose-reel jet, beaters and shovels to extinguish the fire’.

And just half-an-hour later, a crew from Blidworth used water backpacks and spades to extinguish a fire involving grass and undergrowth.

The Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire joint fire control said yesterday: “We are still receiving reports of people having campfires or using disposable barbecues in woodlands and near moorlands.

“Despite having some rain, they can still capable of devastating consequences.”