County Fire Service says they've dealt with almost 30 wildfires this week

Thursday, 2 April 2020 06:56

A senior fire officer based in Cork county says they've been called out to nearly 30 wild fires in the last week alone

The burning of land is illegal since March 1st and the County Fire Service is asking landowners to stop all controlled burning immediately.

A number of the gorse fires have required multiple crews to attend them and concerns are being raised that this may mean that firefighters are unavailable for other emergency call outs

Speaking to RedFM News Senior Executive Fire Officers with the County Fire Service Cormac Daly has this advice for landowners tempted to burn gorse.

"There's actually no need for an awful lot of these fires, it is actually illegal to burn it at the moment.

"For the people who are living close to the areas that are being burnt, you might have elderly people.

"At night time for example these fires are absolutely massive, and it's very very frightening for them.

"These people have enough to be worrying about at the moment, they're living with the Covid-19 thing going on and also now you have these nighttime fires burning around them as well."