Plea to avoid moor burning

Moorland managers and hill farmers have been urged to skip the traditional practice of carrying out the controlled burn of heather and other plants – in order to help ensure there is no chance of any additional call on public services fully occupied with the strain of coronavirus.

With a fortnight left before the end of the main muirburn season on 15 April, Scottish Land and Estates (SLE) yesterday said that this was usually a very busy time for the practice as it was often the only time when conditions were dry enough.

“However, even after a careful risk assessment shows conditions are safe for burning, there could still be an very small risk of a fire getting out of control and needing emergency services to be called out,” said the organisation’s director of moorland, Tim Baynes.

He said this could divert resources from elsewhere and put others at risk – and an ambulance or hospital bed might be unnecessarily tied up: “Even though the risk of the fire getting out of control is very small, we want to be absolutely 100 per cent certain that there is no additional call on the fire or ambulance service and the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

He added that muirburn was a strictly regulated and essential tool to manage moorland and had many benefits: “Putting back a muirburn programme will have consequences, so I urge land managers to keep a record of muirburn foregone because of the current situation, and any impact that has on wildlife and biodiversity.