Meanwhile, in Lightwater ...
I know what you're thinking... 'Dizzo's looking at pictures of Jensen again. But alas, no.
Where I live, we are lucky to be surrounded by beautiful heathland. The clue's in the name, after all - the area is called Surrey Heath. This means that, unfortunately, Heath fires are an annual hazard that we just have to live with, particularly after a dry spell as we've been having recently. There are three main areas of heathland that border my village, Lightwater, and all of them are prone to going up in smoke occasionally; Chobham Common, Lightwater Country Park and the military ranges.
When this fire first started yesterday afternoon, we knew it wasn't the country park, the smoke was coming from the wrong direction. When a few people who live at the southen end of the village started posting on Facebook that they had heard a couple of 'small explosions' we knew the fire was on the ranges - that often happens if a bit of unexploded ordnance is laying around during a heath fire, so army and civilian firefighters have been in attendance since yesterday afternoon.
This was the view from my house yesterday evening:
By this morning, it seems the fires were mostly extinguished and just smouldering, but firefighters would remain in attendance during today because the day was forecasted to be breezy, and this could set pockets of the fire off again.
So that was our bit of bank holiday excitement for sleepy Lightwater!
Where I live, we are lucky to be surrounded by beautiful heathland. The clue's in the name, after all - the area is called Surrey Heath. This means that, unfortunately, Heath fires are an annual hazard that we just have to live with, particularly after a dry spell as we've been having recently. There are three main areas of heathland that border my village, Lightwater, and all of them are prone to going up in smoke occasionally; Chobham Common, Lightwater Country Park and the military ranges.
When this fire first started yesterday afternoon, we knew it wasn't the country park, the smoke was coming from the wrong direction. When a few people who live at the southen end of the village started posting on Facebook that they had heard a couple of 'small explosions' we knew the fire was on the ranges - that often happens if a bit of unexploded ordnance is laying around during a heath fire, so army and civilian firefighters have been in attendance since yesterday afternoon.
This was the view from my house yesterday evening:
By this morning, it seems the fires were mostly extinguished and just smouldering, but firefighters would remain in attendance during today because the day was forecasted to be breezy, and this could set pockets of the fire off again.
So that was our bit of bank holiday excitement for sleepy Lightwater!