Burning..

alps

Need some educating please...

Why is there so much mountain being burned at the moment?

Do the fire services nomally stand by for this, or are they be called where fires have gotten away on those burning?

It's kinda difficult to watch, but don't know the first thing about it so forgive the ignorance.

50HX

To kill off dead vegetation and promote new growth

Weather is v suitable at the moment for this

Cody montana

Absolute disgusting practice.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302840#Comment_120302840

Why?

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302849#Comment_120302849

Setting fire to mountains and having the fire services called out?

This must stop.

Water John

Controlled burning is allowed up to March 1st. It is an old practice of re-establishing fresh growth on hills, especially for sheep.

alps

Hopefully say my name might add in....Is there a char formed from the burning? Is this advantageous to fertility and soil build up..or even carbon storage over time?

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058286430/burning

Saw footage on RTE news.

Clearly out of control when it was about to burn the fence posts without intervention by fire service.

satstheway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302861#Comment_120302861

Very simplistic uninformed view.

Let it grow ungrazed for a couple of years and then you will see fires but they will be uncontrollable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058286430/burning

Most hill have entitlements on their hectares, particularly in this area. Burnt land is ineligible for payment. Farmers are always blamed but imv and to my knowledge, many others have lit fires including firefighters themselves. Uncontrolled fire is arson, which the hard of thinking always blame on the farmer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302894#Comment_120302894

Nothing controlled about the fires I've seen on the hills of kerry over the last few days.

Valentia lifeguard Station was almost burnt down.

Water John

Uncontrolled is the issue. Burning would fertilise the ground with the ash. The burning has a role and isn't damaging to the hill itself.

Jim_Hodge

Kerry fire crews respond to 56 hill fires in three days

Hardly sounds very controlled.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303288#Comment_120303288

Correct. Uncontrolled arson leaves hills here in bad shape for the guts of a decade. It burns fences, livestock, forage and the very ground it grows in. It opens space for invasives like gorse which are fire adapted. A vocal few keep blaming farmers, where is it a farmers interest to burn his entitlements and impoverish his grazing.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303549#Comment_120303549

They don't see it that way. And that's just in one County.

mykrodot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303345#Comment_120303345

what's happening in Kerry is a disgrace. Had to travel from Listowel to Tralee tonight and there are active fires visible all over the place, flames, not smouldering grass. The fire service must be running on empty now, no backup for road traffic accidents or house fires (see what happened Wexford Hospital tonight!! If that happened in Kerry there would be no Fire Service available, they're all up the hills!)

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303549#Comment_120303549

Why do I have to pay for it?

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303549#Comment_120303549

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303581#Comment_120303581

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303597#Comment_120303597

The responsibility for the fires clearly lies with whoever started them.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302964#Comment_120302964

Fires from what?

These were set alight by farmers.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303197#Comment_120303197

Im not a vegan but that’s absolutely rubbish.

Those fires do damage to wildlife and biodiversity.

Scrub is not devoid of life, It’s teeming with insects and birdlife.

You can’t just set whole mountains on fire, this is not natural to Ireland.

You would swear wildlife couldn’t survive before man.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302921#Comment_120302921

Probably a difference in cool burning and hot burning i.e to ash. There's been some reports in journals of accounting for the pyrolysed carbon. But you have to account for these are 99% probably peat ground and carbon will be stored fire or no fire. But then if no fires are allowed full stop the biomass gets to such a stage that if when a fire does break out most likely in the summer then it could be more serious than a cool burn. But too much burning can lead to no biomass and ground cover and rain erosion and soil loss.

All a balance.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303682#Comment_120303682

There are people who get their kicks from arson and just set things on fire to see them burn. If land is not managed to reduce the fire risk all that happens is it provides fuel for situations like last summer in Howth.

weisses

Just get rid of the fukcing sheep and let nature sort itself out ... people who set fire to the hills and let it burn uncontrolled probably have a bit of a screw loose anyway..

Brussels Sprout

Most of the mountains in Ireland look like moonscapes. We've grown up with them looking like that so most people think that that's just how they are meant to look. That's not their natural condition though. It's a result of overgrazing by goats, sheep and deer (none of which are native to Ireland by the way). The natural condition of those mountains would be to be covered in forest. Our wet and humid climate is ideal for tree growth. However they never get the chance because the saplings are eaten by grazing herbivores as soon as they emerge from the ground.

Someone mentioned in a post about how the fires are used to "kill off dead vegetation and promote new growth". For the record, dead vegetation takes care of itself. It'll turn into humus and that, in turn, nourishes the soil for the next generation of new growth. This process takes time though and so some people put their thumb on the scales.

As well as being a potential hazard to humans and structures those fires devastate wildlife, many of which are incinerated every year in these fires. Just because "that's the way it's always been done by people" doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. It benefits a very narrow group of people and animals at the expense of everyone and everything else.

..

https://twitter.com/Cynfab3/status/1629401516078448640?s=20

Charles Babbage

These fires were not managed. They should identify the culprit and impose both a criminal conviction and a fine to recover the cost of firefighters etc.

dohc turbo2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303682#Comment_120303682

Firefighter in killorgan got caught setting the fires last year, was mad for the overtime,

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303229#Comment_120303229

Controlled is when you alert the Gardai, the Fire Services, your neighbors and forest owners within a mile, pull firelines to stop the fire spreading and have help on hand to burn.

I burn 40 acres withing 100 acres of forest, within the burning period and providing the vegetation is dry enough. I do all of the above and there is no issue. When I took over the land it had not been burnt in 20 years with waist high heather. Six weeks after the burn there was an explosion of flowers and bog cotton and fresh heather, and after a few years we noticed the return of the red grouse. The fire burns the dead vegetation and fertilizes the ground. The ground is wet so the peat does not catch fire. The absence of woody vegetation on site makes it easier for raptors to hunt for prey on the mountain.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303809#Comment_120303809

Not true.

The forests of Scots Pine, hazel and birch and occasional oak were cut down by early farmers, and burned too, and a climate change in which the weather got cooler and wetter promoted moss growth then peat formation. These factors working together helped to denude the hills. Wind regime and temperature change make it impossible to grow oak. The soils have been leached by acidity from the peat so you're left with a very infertile soil.

It's instructive to stop thinking in the short term about what we want for ourselves....some of these changes are natural...swings and roundabouts and most likely the overall temperatures will rise over the millennia and forests will again grow. Of course one can start them off with birch and rowan and salix.

it should be noted too that management of ecosystems is important. The recent number of huge forest fires in the Aquitaine region of France, 92% of which is covered in Maritime Pine first planted in the 18th century. It provides a massive forest industry to the region and France. In 2017 a TGV or high-speed train service was inaugurated between Paris and Bordeaux, Capital of Aquitaine. Unfortunately this opened the area up to certain Parisians who like the D4/D6 people had strong opinions on conifers. They decried the planting of pine, and demanded rewilding. Some forest areas post felling were left to nature and to rewild. That meant no human intervention. The result was some of the most devastating wildfires in France, all of which started in the rewilded areas where dead grass and vegetation had accumulated.

Apologies for the digression.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304088#Comment_120304088

You totally ignored my post despite quoting it. There is absolutely nothing controlled about the fires in kerry. Every fire engine is, out putting them out at no expense to the farmer who lit them and property is at risk.

If there was a fire elsewhere in kerry, there wouldn't be any engines to use as they're all up on the hills.

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304373#Comment_120304373

The draw on fire resources is a significant issue. How come the County Council don't invoice the landowner for the callouts? Or are we assuming the invoices aren't sent?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120302964#Comment_120302964

how do these fires start?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304810#Comment_120304810

You'd have to ask the council that question 😁

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304843#Comment_120304843

It's just you said that it was at no cost to the farmer, so I was wondering if that was correct.

magicbastarder

they'd need proof the farmer started the fire to charge the farmer, i assume?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304810#Comment_120304810

You're assuming the landowner started it, s/he/they may be as much a victim in it as any.

monseiur

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303799#Comment_120303799

Agree 100% weiss. Get rid of all the sheep and import all lamb meat from New Zealand - zero carbon footprint 😊 While you're at it get rid of all cattle and import all beef from Brazil, sure they just slash & burn the Amazon Rain Forest (said to be the lungs of our planet) and the more beef Europe buys the more acres they must burn to satisfy the world's insatiable need for food.....Eliminate all farmers and country living folk and force them to move to big cities - loads of houses available, zero congestion issues, zero anti social & drugs issues etc. etc. great place to raise a family ...Some green folk are so blinkered it's a miracle they can see at all.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305002#Comment_120305002

so it's ok to slash and burn ireland for the sake of meat? we export most of our lamb and 90% of our beef and dairy, why would we need to import any if we produced a bit less for the sake of having a bit more natural land on the island? it's particularly annoying that farmers dump their sheep all over our national parks too, land that is supposed to belong to everyone, land that is destroyed by farmers so they can export meat to other countries.

magicbastarder

from a teagasc page:

The Irish Hill Sheep sector plays an important role in the economic health of rural economies and the maintenance of the natural landscape in many of Ireland’s most scenic areas.

i could rewrite that - 'subsidies to hill sheep farmers play an important role in the economic health of rural communities'. hill sheep farmers, on average, earn less than the subsidies they get. they're being paid to lose money.

'and the maintenance of the natural landscape' - at least the author is a comedian.

https://www.teagasc.ie/publications/2020/the-hill-sheep-sector-in-ireland.php

White Clover

The noisy crowd have arrived on this thread in earnest. Plenty of farm land for sale up and down the country which they are entitled to bid on and buy. They can then just leave it to nature as they so wish.

Why don't they do this instead of trying to tell other property owners what to do?

davidk1394

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305047#Comment_120305047

Name one place that's overgrazed by sheep in this country? If anything it's under grazed because hill farmers were forced to de-stock in the early 2000s. You may have your wish though as no young person wants to be a hill farmer.

older by the day

Candles in a sod of turf often started fires in hills around here, while the farmer was in the pub a couple of hours

Thelonious Monk

...

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305108#Comment_120305108

Your lot would rather cover the country in data centres.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305259#Comment_120305259

yes, that's it. either cover the island in data centres and concrete or have sheep absolutely everywhere.

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305131#Comment_120305131

An awful lot of hills were overstocked in the past. Lots still bare the scars. It was purely for farming subsidies that stocking rates ever were as high as they were. Animals and land both suffered.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305259#Comment_120305259

what does this even mean?

magicbastarder

simple ad hominem, i guess?

Furze99

Done properly, it's part and parcel of how hill farmers manage grazing or estates manage lands for grouse shooting.

It's the reckless and uncontrolled burning that is disgraceful. Lads setting burns and then 'disappearing', though who was involved would be known. Having no plan to limit the spread etc. Cowboy mentality that needs to be stamped out by really heavy fines and prison for repeats. Did I hear a chap from NPWS saying only a handful fined last year and then for €5K? Fines of €50K and more would soon focus the minds.

josip

Love these threads 🙂. Although I'm originally from the country, I've lived more of my life in the big city. I've dagged and dipped sheep and worked on servers in datacentres; just not at the same time. Give me the loneliness of the Sperrins, the Antrim Hills or the Knockmealdowns any day over Blanch/Liffey Valley/Dundrum. But I'm only a tourist there, passing through, not having to earn my livelihood from it or provide for my family. I'm not a big fan of sheep and would have blamed them for the state of our mountains. Thanks to this thread, I now see that at least some of that was misplaced. I would like to see a bit more native planting on our uplands, be it birch or scots pine or whatever. Most of that landscape looks fierce bleak.

magicbastarder

unless they can identify the culprits, it's not possible to punish them, certainly not in a court.