Have I understood this correctly? The government has decided the farmers and gamekeepers who saved our skins during the Langdale fire of last year will not receive compensation, not a penny. Nothing for the risks they took to contain the fire, their time, their weeks of unremitting hard work.
And now we have news of the nightmare wildfires in Spain, Wales and Derbyshire. We all know there will be more fires on the North York Moors. It is all but inevitable. So why are the farmer heroes of last year’s fire, the biggest, most damaging fire to date, not being compensated at government level, leaving local councils to step in with one-off funds?
Alison Hume, our MP for Whitby and Scarborough said it was “disappointing” and is lobbying hard for a robust framework to deal with future fires. I doubt that “disappointing” is what the farmers thought.
At a public meeting in March at the Rifle Club, the Fire Service officers gave a presentation on the progress of the fire and the issues the combined agencies had faced in tackling the blaze. The skeleton notes of the meeting are available on the Whitby Community Network website. Among the attendees was a small group of farmers who had physically fought the fire. Plenty had gone well, but there were lessons to be learned.
What I remember most about the meeting, and which still occupies my thoughts, was the raw anger and deep frustration of the farmers at what had not gone well. They spoke of their fears for their livestock, of teenage sons working alone non-stop to protect their farms, of cutting what ended up as 17 km of firebreaks and of the misunderstandings.
And now, a few months later, there’s no compensation.
How can it be that there is nothing at all for the efforts and damage sustained by the very people who know the moors the best, who have the knowledge, who understand the moors, who knew how the wind was going to carry the fire, understood how the topography would direct the fire, who knew where the old tracks not shown on standard maps were so that water could be transported across the otherwise vehicle-inaccessible moorland to fight the fire?
Protecting RAF Fylingdales had to be first priority. You read that the facility is crucial as the UK’s main incoming missile-warning station and that if fire had breached the perimeter, it could have had catastrophic consequences for the country’s security. The base has its own fire service, manned 24 h. The farmers told of beating back the fire very near to the perimeter, and being able to look over at the RAF Fylingdales’ security vehicles and occupants. Not every wildfire has a Fylingdales in the middle of it or the additional complication of explosions from old WWII munitions sunk deep in the turf. Given that the farmers’ efforts were also contributing to maintaining national security, it is even more incomprehensible that they have been completely left out from government compensation.
Ruth Denison, Whitby
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