Mountain inferno rages near homes
THIS was the inferno firefighters were confronted with when they were called to a mountain in Tonypandy yesterday.
One passer-by claimed the blaze towered over the nearby Asda store. The supermarket can be seen in the foreground of the footage.
“It’s on Penrhys mountain, but you can see it from behind Asda,” the onlooker said.
“It’s across a large area, I saw a helicopter flying over and there are a couple of fire engines there.
“It stretches across the whole mountain.”
Every time there was nice weather fire “youngsters” would torch the landscape, said the witness.
“I would say it is about twice the size of Asda, it’s massive. There is a lot of smoke and it seems to be spreading quite a lot with the wind,” the witness said.
“It’s very close to houses too. It’s blowing toward mine. I’m really worried.”
The bystander was baffled why people would set fire to mountains.
“I’ve not got a clue why they do it,” they said.
“They’re probably thugs. I don’t know what time it started, I just saw it when I drove past it.”
South Wales Fire Service confirmed they had been called to the mountain yesterday.
“There is a huge fire we’re trying to put out,” a spokeswoman said.
She said five fire engines were initially sent.
Of grass fires across Wales in 2013-14, 56% were in South Wales, 32% were in Mid and West Wales and 12% were in North Wales.
At the time, firefighter Tony Redman said the arsonists’ actions were not born out of deliberate criminality or “consciously malicious” behaviour.
“We believe up to 90% of these fires are started deliberately by young males, ranging from the age of 10 to grown adults,” he said
“These are young people who are idle and feel they have nothing to engage them.
“Lots of the kids we speak to, we engage with through schools and through youth clubs. In the youth clubs we tend to find an attitude that ‘it’s no big deal’.”