Major incident declared as moorland fire spreads

The fire covers an area of about 5 sq km, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service says

A major incident has been declared by the fire service as a moorland blaze which started in the North York Moors National Park on Monday continues to spread.

Twenty appliances crewed by about 100 firefighters have now been sent to the scene on Langdale Moor, near the ballistic missile early warning base at RAF Fylingdales, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service (NYFRS) said.

"The fire has now spread and is covering around 5 sq km," the fire service said in its latest update at 12:30 BST on Wednesday.

"More resources are being sent to the scene. This has now been declared a major incident."

Fire crews were first called out at 18:30 BST on Monday to reports of smoke, prompting fire chiefs to advise people living nearby to keep windows and doors closed and for others to avoid the area if possible.

Dark grey smoke was seen billowing over the moors on Wednesday morning as the blaze continued.

Smoke could be seen billowing over the moors as the blaze continued

Dave Gatland, from the nearby village of Sleights, described seeing a "thick, slow-moving, yellow cloud" of smoke rising above the moors over the past couple of days during his dog walks.

He said: "It's still on the go – so it's a significant fire.

"There's still a lot of smoke and over at this side of the valley, which is approximately a mile, you can see it has been completely obliterated and visibility is less than half a mile.

"Yesterday I saw farmers carrying water heading to the fire and there was a lot of people out assisting, but it is going to take a considerable time to stop the peat soil burning."

NYFRS group manager Tony Peel said there was "no timescale whatsoever" on when the fire would end, especially as the wind had now changed, which could cause it to spread further.

He expected the fire to die down overnight, adding there would be a new plan in place from the fire service on Thursday to try to extinguish it.

He said: "The next few days are critical as due to the heat, the wildfires will spread as once the heat comes away from the atmosphere, they do die down a bit.

"We will try to extinguish it as soon as possible, but sometimes we need to let certain areas burn so we're able to get to the fire, so there is no timescale on this whatsoever and it won't be over in the next 48 hours."

People are being advised to take precautions as the blaze continues

Nick Allenby, station manager and wildfire adviser for NYFRS, added the "dry weather and the accessibility issues we've had in this remote location have made it very difficult for us to fight this fire".

He added the cause of the fire was still not known.

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) said its heritage steam train services would be suspended until further notice, with diesel locomotives running instead.

The NYMR added on Wednesday that it would delay the start of the Tornado services that were due to run from Friday to Sunday.

A spokesperson said: "We hope to have an update on the revised start date once temperatures have cooled down.

"In addition, we've switched all of our Pickering to Grosmont standard services to heritage diesel locomotives, and we still aim to run steam-hauled services between Grosmont and Whitby due to the lower fire risk profile."

A fire service spokesperson previously said crews found the fire had "jumped" a fire break put in place late on Monday.

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