Praise for Longford fire service personnel who battled huge bog blaze

Fire service units from Longford, Granard and Edgeworthstown battled a major fire in north county Longford on Sunday and Monday and managed to bring it under control with forestry threatened.

The extensive fire in the Cloonaugh Bog, Gobadorish and Bohey bog started on Sunday evening, May 11 at around 8.30pm and it was extinguished later that night.

However, due to rising wind and dry conditions the fire re-ignited on Monday morning, May 12 and the blaze spread quickly with concerns raised that it could spread to local forestry and bog-land.

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Local Senator Paraic Brady stated between the woodland, the high ground and the low ground and the shrubbery around it the area would be in excess of 500 acres.

The Fine Gael representative said there had been a lot of concern and he praised the fire service personnel who worked at the scene to extinguish the blaze, which brought considerable relief.

"There is thousands of euro worth of timber there and if it got into it it would have destroyed livelihoods.
"It would have destroyed peoples state pensions.

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"There is a lot of forestry in that area."

It is understood there is no indication that the fire was started deliberately.

Senator Brady said there is relief "because once a fire ignites and spreads in an area nobody knows where it will end up".

There were no reported injuries and no damage to forestry or property.

Senator Brady said people are thankful that the blaze did not spread any further than it did.
"There are houses that would not be that far away from the fire.

"The fire service were there from Sunday evening until it got dark and they thought it had been put out and they left.

"But it reignited on Monday morning with the wind and they returned and brought it under control," he added.

Rising temperatures and low levels of rainfall during the past seven days led to a the risk of wild fires increasing significantly.