Ireland’s wildfire laws outdated says ecologist as Slievenamon fire reignites
Vivienne Clarke and Sarah Slater
An ecologist is warning that Ireland’s current legislation for dealing with fires that were deliberately started is 30 years out of date and the current deterrents are not sufficient.
Padraic Fogarty told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that “in the very unlikely event” that a person was caught and prosecuted, fines might be hundreds of euro “which really is not a deterrent.”
Fogarty also said that there were mixed messages about “controlled burning,” which should not be acceptable at any time. "Fires should be unacceptable on land. We should not be burning land full stop.
“This comes back to what I think is the fundamental problem with our unpreparedness, is that our land use is such that our ecosystems are completely degraded.
“It's meeting now a worsening climate situation where we get more and more prolonged dry spells. So we're going to see more and more of these fires and worse fires unless we start addressing our land use issues.”
Fogarty said hills, where many of the wildfires were occurring, were peatland habitats; they should be wet.
“They should be our climate champions because peat is so important for storing carbon. And they should also be really important biodiversity areas, except they're in an extremely degraded state, which means they dry out very quickly and are very fire-vulnerable.
“So the response should be basically the opposite of that, basically trying to keep as much water on the hills as possible.
"We need to get our forests back into our hills. Our native forests, which used to cover the hills, are not flammable. And we've seen that even in National Park recently where the flames just don't go into areas where we have intact natural forests.
"Unfortunately, we've cleared out nearly all of our native forests from the hills, but we could reverse that.
“We also have a forestry model based on monocultures of one particular type of conifer tree, and that exacerbates the fire problem. This is a huge issue in France and Spain where these vast monocultures are fuelling the flames. So we need to be transitioning to different types of commercial forestry.”
The ecological damage from wildfires was catastrophic, he said. Much of the damage had been done in recent years with land in areas already in “dire” condition.
The government’s response to nature restoration regulations was very important, he said. The laws were in place, plans had been put together, but funding stream measures needed to be put in place in the forthcoming budget.
“If they don't put money behind it or they don't put sufficient money behind it, you won't get the confidence of landowners or communities to get behind it and do this massive job of work that needs to be done.
It comes as a fire has reignited on Slievenamon on Tuesday, and firefighters are currently on scene.
Tipperary Fire and Rescue Service were stood down on Monday night after the wildfire appeared to have finally been brought under control.
However, the service received a call at 7.15am that the fire on the mountain appeared to have reignited on the southwest side of the mountain, according to the fire services.
Scores of firefighters, the Air Corps, gardaí, volunteers, local farmers and residents have been involved in efforts to quell the fire which has been raging since Monday of last week.
Elsewhere, Waterford Fire Service continues to deal with a gorse fire in the Mahon Falls area of the Comeragh Mountains.
The fire was reported on Sunday at around 3 pm, and crews from Dungarvan, Kilmacthomas and Portlaw continue to attend the scene.
A Waterford City and County Council spokesperson said while a large area has been burned, firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading into nearby forestry.
They said: "No buildings are currently at risk and no injuries have been reported.
"Access roads in the vicinity are narrow, and members of the public are asked to avoid the area to ensure that ongoing fire service operations are not obstructed," the spokesperson said.
