Fire still burning on Slievenamon as cause may never be known
Vivienne Clarke
A senior fire service official has acknowledged that it will probably never be known what started a fire in Tipperary that has been burning on Slievenamon.
Carol Kennedy, acting assistant fire chief, told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that crews from Clonmel, Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir are on site now, monitoring and assessing any damage that has been caused.
The fire started as a wild gorse fire and because vegetation “is like kindling at the moment” it extended 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.
“As you could understand when it gets dark, the conditions up there underfoot and everything can be quite dangerous. And there was very little we could do at that time of the night. So they retreated to the end of the mountain where 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 late last night around 4 a.m., 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 that there was a lot of smoke so she encouraged people to keep windows and doors shut. Anyone with respiratory issues should also exercise caution.
On a fire like this, we may never know what caused it because of the extent of the fire and the damage afterwards. (So we really don't know.
"All that I can say is the dry weather and the heat wave 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, will aid in the firefighting.
