Carlow’s Acting Fire Chief adds his voice to concerns around outdoor activities this weekend

Fires can take hold very quickly and put us under a lot of pressures, so says Carlow’s Acting Fire Chief.

It’s as the Department of Agriculture has issued an Orange warning for forest fires and grass fires, especially in upland areas.

That warning continues to Tuesday and Acting Chief Fire Officer in Carlow Liam Carroll says “The Easter Bank Holiday is always a peak time for us with wildland fires; just we have more public activity, people walking in the countryside and that so I’d just appeal to people just to be cautious when in the countryside this weekend and I suppose keep in mind that it is Covid-19 we still have level five restrictions we shouldn’t be travelling any more than 5km from home and just to be extra cautious when in upland areas that given the conditions the fires can take hold very, very quickly and they’ll put us under a lot of pressure as conditions deteriorate”.

He adds “These fires they can take hold and burn for many hours, it’s not a case that these fires can be dealt with in thirty or forty minutes, often times these fires can on to twelve or twenty-four hours even which takes us away from the main population areas where people are most at risk from life-threatening fires where there’s domestics house fires, structural fires and road traffic accidents”.

Coillte too had been outlining their concerns on this issue – read that here