As crews finally leave Holme Fen, Cambs Fire chiefs pay tribute to ‘immense’ contributions of those who helped tackle month-long blaze
Crews from near and far spent most of August fighting huge peat and woodland wildfire
Firefighters have finally withdrawn from the month-long blaze which devastated Holme Fen throughout the summer.
From August 8, scores of fire crews from around the region and across the country maintained a vigilant presence at the 657-acre nature reserve just south of Yaxley.
At its peak, the huge blaze saw 100 firefighters deployed to the site, some of whom had come from as far as Devon, Somerset, Durham, Darlington, London and Merseyside to help local colleagues.
Speaking to the Peterborough Telegraph at the now barren and charred site, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Stuart Smith, said he was “extremely proud” of all those who had gone above and beyond to bring the fire under control:
“It was hard for everybody,” he said, “I'm really proud of each and every one of them for the dedication they showed.”
Stuart said tackling the massive wildfire had put great strains on the “predominantly rural organisation”, which is largely staffed by on-call firefighters outside of the county’s towns and cities:
"I’ve been in the organisation for about 22 years now and this is the largest scale incident that I’ve seen in Cambridgeshire,” he said.
"20 fire engines at the height of the incident is a huge ask for the organisation, over and above our planning assumptions.
“To try and maintain that for a period of time before we were able to scale back – and the efforts that our firefighters put in to try and maintain appliance availability so that the fire engines could get to the scene and we could have the personnel on scene to deal with it – was immense.”
Stuart was also keen to highlight that it wasn’t just the crews on the ground who played an integral role in bringing the fire under control: ”Our control room colleagues, our professional support colleagues [all] stopped their day jobs to do stuff that that's not in their in their role to do, to make sure that ultimately the frontline firefighters could come here and and do the job that they they needed to do,” he noted.
“The dedication has been superb.”