{"id":558069,"date":"2026-04-30T03:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558069\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T03:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:44:11","slug":"mourne-wildfires-firefighters-working-tirelessly-to-tackle-fresh-blaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558069\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourne wildfires: Firefighters working ‘tirelessly’ to tackle fresh blaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mournes wildfires took hold on the same weekend that the first wildfire warning of the year was issued<\/a> following a prolonged spell of dry weather.<\/p>\n

On Monday, a Mourne Mountain Rescue team co-ordinator said the challenge with recurring wildfires is that “there are no consequences” for those responsible.<\/p>\n

Martin McMullan said the fires in the mountains at the weekend “definitely didn’t look like they started from a recreational source”.<\/p>\n

Andrew Muir, the environment minister, rejected claims of no consequences<\/a> and said arsonists could face prison in some cases, but he added that the authorities need the public’s help to bring them to justice.<\/p>\n

Muir was asked if areas vulnerable to wildfires should be patrolled at this time of year to prevent future arson attacks.<\/p>\n

“The Mournes and many other areas across Northern Ireland, including, for example the Sperrins, are very large geographic areas and we can’t have individuals everywhere,” Muir replied.<\/p>\n

The minister said he had spoken to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and they had “issued a statement making it very clear that they will carry out investigations around this”.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Mourne Heritage Trust charity expressed concern about the loss of “engagement rangers”<\/a> in the Mourne Mountains.<\/p>\n

The roles were introduced in response to record visitor numbers in the Mournes during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

However, a lack of funding saw the number of those roles reduced, with the last engagement ranger leaving his post in December.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs published its wildfire action, external<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

It set out a coordinated response to what officials described as a growing threat.<\/p>\n

It includes dozens of measures aimed at improving resilience and reducing the frequency and severity of fires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mournes wildfires took hold on the same weekend that the first wildfire warning of the year was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-558069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}