Shropshire fire crews tested by ‘challenging, arduous’ wildfires

Fires in Shropshire’s countryside in the hot weather are putting crews under “immense pressure”, according to the county’s fire service.

Blazes like the one which broke out near Clun on Friday and near Pontesbury on Sunday evening, had posed “significant challenges”, their head of operations Lee Baker said.

Crews from across the county were sent to Sunday’s fire, which involved commercial buildings and several vehicles.

Most Shropshire’s firefighters are part-time, retained crews with other jobs, and Baker said the service had had to rotate teams in order to provide breaks and relieve crews after long shifts.

He said the service had also been called on to give support to colleagues as far away as Derbyshire and south Wales.

“We’re sometimes having to manage our capability in a more flexible and agile way,” the officer told BBC Radio Shropshire, but added that cover was maintained across the county.

The acting chair of Shropshire’s fire authority, councillor Susan Coleman, paid tribute to crews who were “going out day after day, hour after hour”.

“In the last six weeks or so, we’ve had something like 600 incidents altogether, of which about 130 are to do with wildfires,” she added.

“Normally we’d go to something like 4,000 incidents a year. If it kept on at this rate it would be over 5,000, so it’s really quite significant.”