7 May 2025

The devastation of spring moor fires

The head of the Colne Valley on the eastern flanks of the Pennines is visually dramatic – especially when its surrounded by flames.

By Simon Armitage

Photo by John Stephenson / Alamy

One spring about six years ago I was working in the US. I turned on the telly and there on the screen were vivid images of wildfires above the Yorkshire village where I grew up.

Marsden rarely hits the headlines. It’s not exactly a sleepy parish, more of a working community, at the head of the Colne Valley on the eastern flanks of the Pennines – but it’s visually very dramatic, especially when the moors surrounding it are in flames. And although this was the BBC News, American broadcasters also were running the story, having found the footage equally compelling (or cheap). I guess drones have made phenomena of this kind all the more photogenic. A decade ago it would have been difficult to see the full extent or nature of the fires, but now we can observe how they march forward in lines or ranks, not stopping until they reach one of the dozens of reservoirs in the area, or run out of fuel.

The fires seemed both unpredictable and somehow methodical at the same time, devouring everything in their path, and leaving a scorched and smouldering landscape behind. I could see my mum and dad’s house on the screen, out of harm’s way, surrounded by non-flammable cow and sheep pasture rather than anything more combustible. Yet the sheer scale of the blaze – covering several square miles – made the entire village seem vulnerable.

Such fires are nothing new; I remember them happening when I was kid, and they were mostly at the end of summer when everything was bone dry. Now they’re two or three times a year, with the most devastating occurring in spring. In March and April the moor is covered in highly ignitable dead grass, more parched these days because we live in a warmer world. Conflagrations over these months are catastrophic for wildlife; insect and rodent populations are wiped out, meaning there’s very little to eat for birds, including short-eared owls and merlin, and avifauna such as twite, curlew, snipe and golden plover have their habitat and offspring incinerated. Grouse suffer the same fate, though I have less (ie, zero) sympathy for the shooting fraternity and the landed gentry who “own” the moors yet do hardly anything (ie, nothing) to preserve and protect them.

It’s no exaggeration to say that many living things are torched alive when the fires spread. It is heartbreaking as well for the workers and volunteers involved in tree-planting, fence-building and peat-restoration projects to see all their efforts go up in smoke.

The cause of the blazes is always presented as something of a head-scratching mystery, both by journalists and the helpless fire crews, whose immediate task is the equivalent of trying to extinguish a volcano with a water pistol. Natural causes such as lightning strikes (incredibly rare) are sometimes blamed. I once heard a man in the pub pointing the finger of culpability firmly in the direction of fireflies: “Think about it.”

A more convincing theory is stupidity, often in the form of disposable barbecues or cigarettes. I suspect most fires are started deliberately, though, probably with no malice beyond creating maximum spectacle for minimum effort and with no prospect of being nabbed. The moors are one of the last places in the UK that aren’t crammed with CCTV, which on most occasions is actually a blessing. They’re also easily accessed and often devoid of humans, people we might usually call witnesses. If this kind of happening is what excites you, all it takes is one match, then from a few hills away you can watch your handiwork as the wind-fanned flames gallop across the panorama and the sky becomes a bluey-grey haze, then stick it all on Instagram or YouTube.

Even in Huddersfield, several miles down the valley, it’s possible to smell the fires if the breeze is in the right direction. It’s night now, and from my study window I can see a living contour of orange flames coming down the slope towards Holmfirth, and taste trouble in the air.