wildfires 2011

muckish

Knockalla Mountain 30/04/11, as seen from letterkenny area. Milford town in the distance.

Hootanany

Just heard was it malicious

DoneDL

still going, kicked off again about 12.00 and looks massive even fron the top of Golan

Harps

Massive one around Dungloe as well, couldnt see a thing this morning with the smoke and I'm miles from it

rightyabe

Yeah the 1 in leitirmacawaird is massive it started in doochery and is on the outskirts of dungloe now it travelled some miles, was down lastnight watching it, and to be honest the fire crews we doing nothing they could have easily stopped it from crossing the road, they had hours to dampen areas.

Also i was at the doochery crossroads earlier and people were walking close to the fire and then running from it, tryin to put it out. It really is a sight to see!!!!

Harps

Army helicopters have been drafted in to try and bring it under control, black smoke coming from it now which cant be a good sign

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0501/donegal.html

rightyabe

Cant see any helicoptors from here, on the phone to a friend there whos watching it, houses on the glenties side of dungloe being evucated now the fires is meters from the houses...

rushnaldo

Same thing every year now. Why are the farmers who start these not locked up and have rte key thrown away?

retalivity

thanks for the pic, muckish

Im out of the country, reading about it on the news, and looking for videos and pics.
can anyone help me out? (rte is all i found so far)

North_West_Art

a few hours ago I noticed the smoke cloud had traveled as far as Ballybofey, the cloud had covered the whole area in a kind of a haze

Mint Sauce

Harps wrote: »

Army helicopters have been drafted in to try and bring it under control, black smoke coming from it now which cant be a good sign

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0501/donegal.html

Have heard a few helicopters down here this evening (outside donegal town), assume they're heading from Finner.

Ayla

The forestry around Ballyshannon (The Knather/Cavangarden/Cashelard) is all ablaze. I can see it from my top hill and it's terrifying. A big thank you is due to all the brave men & women out there tonight.

homer simpson

retalivity wrote: »

thanks for the pic, muckish

Im out of the country, reading about it on the news, and looking for videos and pics.
can anyone help me out? (rte is all i found so far)

I'll have a few photos to put up in about 1/2 an hour...


We were down near dungloe this afternoon for a run and thought we would take a nosey to see, im still in shock. the fires have burned pretty much everything from Glendowan - dungloe - letermacaward.


there was a real good community feeling out there with seemingly every man and his dog out with shovels ect trying to put it out, but i must say fair play to Tony Kelly (used to own honda / merc in letterkenny) he was out with his helicopter with the bucket under scooping water and dumping it on the fire, kodos to the man, him and the army helicopter were going a long ways towards dealing with the blaze.

Undercover_

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150115864210866.282827.696520865#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.222074251142721.72685.100000204425369

some good pics here- scary looking!

bohsboy

Ayla wrote: »

The forestry around Ballyshannon (The Knather/Cavangarden/Cashelard) is all ablaze. I can see it from my top hill and it's terrifying. A big thank you is due to all the brave men & women out there tonight.

I saw that tonight and it is indeed a massive blaze. Looks very bad.

inode

Undercover_ wrote: »

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150115864210866.282827.696520865#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.222074251142721.72685.100000204425369

some good pics here- scary looking!

Some great pics....hope nobody loses their homes. Those buckets they use to put out the fires are actually made where I am now. (in Vancouver)

Harps

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2011121/crefl1_143.A2011121110500-2011121111000.250m.jpg

A good satellite pic with the fires clearly visible

Its gotten worse here as the day's gone on, visibility was down to a couple of hundred metres by sunset and I'm about 10 miles from the fire. The whole area is just thick with smoke and we can't open windows with the smell

muffler

rushnaldo wrote: »

Same thing every year now. Why are the farmers who start these not locked up and have rte key thrown away?

I doubt if it's the farmers who are solely responsible for these fires.

It's usually some yobs who have nothing better to do.

muffler

Harps wrote: »

Its gotten worse here as the day's gone on, visibility was down to a couple of hundred metres by sunset and I'm about 10 miles from the fire. The whole area is just thick with smoke and we can't open windows with the smell

I was going in to Letterkenny just before 7 this evening and there was a large amount of smoke coming from somewhere in the general direction of the Ramelton road/Ballyraine area. As I was going up past the fire station there was a tender just on its way out.

Cat82

Its scary how these fires. I hope that there are no casualites. Good link Harps. Mad to see the amount of smoke that the fires are generating. Don't know why but I'm only getting wedding pics on the facebook link.

homer simpson

Here a few of my photos, not the best but they give you an idea of the scale of the thing...

Undercover_

Try this link... http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.222074251142721.72685.100000204425369

homer simpson

You can click on the photos themselves to view larger or click here for the full set on flickr. the photos dont really do justice to the scale of the thing and the effort being made to stop it from spreading further, it really is Quite scary, not what o was expecting at all.


There was only one damaged property reported so far in the Dungloe area and that was "just" a shed attached to a house, massive effort being put in around residential areas!

Betsy18

its really frightening, ballyshannon was covered in smoke today just heard tonight that 2 houses are ablaze and more homes have been evacuated, they are appealing for help from the public! i dont know if this is a rumour or not but im hoping its not true! well done to those out fighting to get this fire under control.

Undercover_

homer_simpson wrote: »

You can click on the photos themselves to view larger or click here for the full set on flickr. the photos dont really do justice to the scale of the thing and the effort being made to stop it from spreading further, it really is Quite scary, not what o was expecting at all.


There was only one damaged property reported so far in the Dungloe area and that was "just" a shed attached to a house, massive effort being put in around residential areas!

Great pics, particularly like the Man 1 and 2, really shows the task in hand to go at that amount of flames with a shovel! Hopefully the night will calm it and not make it worse now.

Mint Sauce

Undercover_ wrote: »

Great pics, particularly like the Man 1 and 2, really shows the task in hand to go at that amount of flames with a shovel! Hopefully the night will calm it and not make it worse now.

Hopefully. Although efforts are being called off for the night.

muffler

Harps wrote: »

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2011121/crefl1_143.A2011121110500-2011121111000.250m.jpg

A good satellite pic with the fires clearly visible

Just for clarity I took a screen grab of the relevant part

Penfailed

Photos of Knockalla taken looking across the Swilly from Inishowen -

Sierra Oscar

Betsy18 wrote: »

they are appealing for help from the public!

Has the local authority activated the Civil Defence yet do you know?

There are hundreds of Auxillary Fire Service members available from across the country to help combat gorse fires, but in recent years the authorities seem to be slow in activating them for whatever reason I do not know - they are specifically trained to provide support for the Fire Brigade in these sort of situations.

homer simpson

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Has the local authority activated the Civil Defence yet do you know?

There are hundreds of Auxillary Fire Service members available from across the country to help combat gorse fires, but in recent years the authorities seem to be slow in activating them for whatever reason I do not know - they are specifically trained to provide support for the Fire Brigade in these sort of situations.

Someone actually mentioned that today, said they seen every kind of response crew except the civil defense, maybe they were there along with the firemen / in fire gear, because i'll be honest i didn't think there were as many firemen in Donegal as i seen today, and that was on a small area of the fire, and there were other fires too.

lila44

muffler wrote: »

I was going in to Letterkenny just before 7 this evening and there was a large amount of smoke coming from somewhere in the general direction of the Ramelton road/Ballyraine area. As I was going up past the fire station there was a tender just on its way out.

Yeah. I live near there, couldn't go outside for the smell!

Dont think it was anything to do with the gorse fires tho...