A fire at Bourne Valley Nature Reserve in Poole was believed to have been started deliberately on Monday afternoon, destroying about 7.5 acres of heathland and sending crews back again on Tuesday morning after more hotspots were found. Sixty people dialled 999 shortly after 15:00 BST as the blaze took hold.
Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue area manager Ant Bholah said the fire was believed to have been deliberate, while Det Insp Darren Stanton of Dorset Police said it may have been started deliberately. Stanton said nobody was injured, but warned that these fires can have devastating consequences and that investigators would pursue all available lines of enquiry.
The scale of the burn is what makes this one stand out. Heathland can carry fire fast, and Bholah said warm, dry, breezy weather and dry ground had made the risk worse. He added that any ignition, whether accidental or deliberate, can spread quickly across the heathland and that the fires can generate their own heat, so once they get going they can move quicker than someone can run.
The fire also came only days after another deliberate heath fire near Wareham that was tackled by crews and equipment from 13 stations. That earlier incident is part of why the latest blaze has landed so hard: fire officials say deliberate fires have become a recurring problem in the area, but no one has been identified as responsible for this one.
Dorset Police has appealed for information to help trace those responsible, and Bholah urged anyone who sees anything suspicious to call 999 straight away. The question now is not whether the damage was serious — it was — but who started the fire and whether the next ignition can be stopped before it spreads across more of Bourne Valley.
