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Fire damage on hills 'could take years to undo'

Chloe HughesWest Midlands
Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust A nature reserve looking from a hill to a high rise buildings has charred and blackened earth surrounding browning treesBirmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust
The aftermath of the blaze reveals scorched earth, which a wildlife trust said could take years to undo

A wildlife trust has said fire damage to a Sandwell nature reserve is "extensive" and could take years to undo.

Thirty firefighters were sent to the scene on Portway Hill in Oldbury, part of the Rowley Hills, when flames broke out on Wednesday.

Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust, which manages the spot, said the site was a "stronghold" for Marbled White butterflies, and was home to scarce plants including Pyramidal Orchids and Bee Orchids. It added there was "geology of international importance" to be found there.

It added that staff would work hard to hep nature recover.

Portway Hill is not the only site run by the wildlife trust to have been hit by fire in recent weeks - Moseley Bog & Joy's Wood, the childhood playground of The Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien, was also affected, the trust said.

Castle Vale Meadows, which the trust helped create in 2013, also saw fires.

Deputy chief executive of the trust Dan Brown said he was "saddened" by the fire, and called on the public to cherish green spaces.

A man with white-grey hair and black glasses. He is wearing a black t-shirt that has a badger logo on the breast and says "Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust". Behind him is a field in a nature reserve completely blackened and charred by fire. There are very few pathway shapes not affected by fire, and they are light brown dead grass. In the distance are high rise buildings
Dan Brown from the wildlife trust said staff and volunteers would work to restore the site for nature

It is not yet known what caused the fire.

West Midlands Fire Service said Wednesday was one of its busiest days of the year with almost 800 calls amid hot and dry conditions.

It added that crews had attended "a number of deliberately-set fires" at locations that included grasslands.

"If we can ask the public to stop using public barbecues, and be really aware of how they discard things like cigarettes," said Alan Allmark from the service.

"There's [generally] an element of some deliberate fire setting as well, this is not the time to be entering into that type of activity," he said.

"We are stretched at the moment."

He said the fire service had been trying to prepare by looking at planned events and weather forecasts from the Met Office.

"We try to match our resources to any predictable demands or surges in incident types of this nature."

"We have got a process where we can ask for overtime volunteers as well, so we can get staff in that would normally be off-duty."

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