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FIRE SERVICES HAD yet another weekend of fighting gorse and grass fires around the country as the dry weather continues.
Yesterday evening, Dublin Fire Brigade responded to a gorse fire on Carrickbrack Road in Howth. Earlier in the day, firefighters from Dun Laoghaire responded to a grass fire on the Enniskerry Road.
On Sunday night hundreds of acres of land went up in flames because of a gorse fire in Fintown, Co Donegal.
Firefighters responded to a hill fire in Annamoe on Friday night, also.
These fires can be caused by accident, through dropping cigarettes or leaving glass bottles behind on a sunny day.
They also can be caused deliberately.
Farmers are permitted to burn land between 1 September and 28 February, but farmers have considered this timeframe “too narrow due to climatic conditions” to carry out the burning.
No one has ever been prosecuted for deliberately setting a fire outside the permitted timeline, despite numerous allegations that that’s what causes a great number of gorse fires.
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