On Monday afternoon we had many concerned members of the public calling in to report a fire on the Common. Indeed, a very concerned member of the public called the fire brigade and two engines turned up to put out the blaze!
The fire was actually started deliberately by our staff and this is a comment from Dave Haldane, our Wildlife Liaison Officer, explaining why:
"In accordance with best practice for heath and acid grassland management, selected areas of Wimbledon and Putney Commons receive an annual controlled burn. This is carried out between November and early March. The fire is designed to burn off accumulated plant litter thereby reducing nutrient availability that would otherwise increase soil fertility, something that you don't want for acid grassland. Heather, when subjected to a light burn, will successfully regenerate from its stem base and a high percentage of viable seed will germinate. Heathland and Acid grasslands are found on nutrient poor soils with a pH of 4.5 to 5.3. Only small areas of heath and grassland are managed annually, using fire as a tool. This limits disturbance to soil fauna dependent on the presence of moisture and plant litter."
We had advised the Fire Brigade before we lit the fires but they are, of course, duty bound to attend should they be called out. Whilst we did not need them on this occasion, we would still rather that concerned members of the public call them should they see any fires on the Common, particularly in the summer months, as an out of control fire could cause tremendous damage. We do have the capability of dealing with small fires ourselves so a call to the Ranger's Office to let us know about a fire means we can deploy our staff immediately and that will often be enough to ensure that the fire is put out quickly and does not spread.
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