It is illegal to set fires to burn off undergrowth at this time of year, but that doesn’t stop people lighting them on bogs across the west of Ireland. As I drove back to Galway on Monday evening, the sky in the west was darkened with a pall of smoke. Fires were burning just west of Spiddal, on the boggy hills that overlook the town and the bay. Due to the dry and warm weather over the last week, the undergrowth is dry and burns easily.
I presume the reason for the fires is that farmers or landowners want to burn off furze/gorse and other undergrowth at the very start of the growing season, to stop boggy land becoming unmanageable. Unfortunately, it is inevitably the fires that become hard to manage. A bog fire, fanned by sea breezes, can consume a large area quickly. The problem is that it is not just the local wildlife under threat. On every bog road are a number of homes, that are surrounded by either undergrowth or forestry plantations – both of which are ideal fuel for a bog fire. The bog roads around Boliska Lough (that supplies the water to Spiddal) are long and narrow, making it difficult for the fire crews to get to the fires easily. As the fires burned near the roads, some residents were in danger of being trapped or cut off. The fires were still burning into the night, which meant that homeowners need to be alert in case airborne sparks hit their houses, or the line of fire burned in their direction.
These fires happen in Connemara every year. They sometimes damage forestry plantations – many of which are planted in bogland, they kill wildlife and they consume the time and resources of fire brigades. But the most serious aspect of setting these fires is that there is usually people living along these bog roads, living in houses surrounded by combustable material, and sooner or later, a fire is going to catch a family unawares. At best, people have the worry of having their home or garden damaged – at worst, the consequences are unthinkable. Burning off the bog as a custom needs to die a death, before someone caught in its path does.
Update (24th April 2015) : I forgot to mention above that, as I drove out to the fire, there was a paraglider flying back towards the city. If the pilot was taking pictures, they would have been spectacular. Also, at the start of the video, you can see what looks like a fire/smoke tornado forming briefly as one of the smoke plumes on the horizon. I was too far away to get a close look.