Devastating forest fire causes millions worth of damage
Connemara locals and fire crews struggle to contain blaze
EFFORTS will resume this morning to bring a fire at one of the biggest forests in the country under control in Co Galway.
Officials from Coillte and fire crews monitored the massive forest and bogland fire across a vast expanse of Connemara throughout the night.
It is feared over 1,000 hectares of forest have been destroyed, while extensive damage has been caused to bogs, wildlife and the habitat in a fire which has been burning since the weekend in the Cloosh Valley.
Fire crews, who were aided by local farmers in addition to Coillte officials and two Aer Corps helicopters, managed to get a substantial part of the fire on the 4,000-hectare forest under control yesterday.
But a combination of swirling winds, tinder-dry vegetation and warm temperatures combined to see the fire go out of control again by yesterday evening.
By then tens of thousands of litres of water had been doused on the wildfire by a Coillte aircraft and the two Aer Corps helicopters, which dropped 1,200 litres of water at a time from their Bambibuckets.
Plumes of smoke could be
seen in a vast area from Oughterard to Spiddal, while the increasingly strong winds resulted in the smoke drifting 30km away to Galway city and Salthill by late yesterday evening, blocking out the evening sunshine in a cloud of dense smog.
Earlier in the afternoon, the smoke was blowing in the opposite direction, westward and south to Roundstone and Ballyconneely. The damage has been estimated by Coillte at millions of euro and it will take years to replace.
Many of the trees destroyed were 20 years old.
The main priority for fire fighters last night was to ensure that the fire did not spread to houses and other dwellings in areas such as Seanafeistin and Costello.
Kevin Tracey of Galway Fire Service said pockets of the fire kept breaking out during the day.
“The wind direction kept changing so all we could do was stop it at the roads, stop it crossing and getting to houses and property,” he said.
Farmers and other bog-owners joined in the battle to put out the fire, surveying the damage.
“It’s a huge danger to wildlife and other animals and you’d hate to think of them being hurt,” said Costello resident Seamus MacDonnacha.
Sheep wandering the road is a familiar site throughout Connemara, with their fleeces making them particularly vulnerable.
“They tend to know how to stay ahead of the fire but you’d fear other animals mightn’t be as lucky,” he added.
The forest had provided plenty of employment over the years and Oughterard resident Seamus Geoghegan, who found work in the Cloosh Valley forest when he returned from England, lamented the loss of the trees he had helped plant.
“It’s heart-breaking to see the trees gone like that after years planting them,” he remarked.
Micheal Lynch from Leitir Mor said: “It’s destroyed, gone, millions of euros worth of trees gone.”