Tintwistle wildfire extinguished after two months

A wildfire which burned on a moor in the Derbyshire Peak District for two months has been extinguished.

Fire crews were initially called to Tintwistle Moor near Glossop late on 24 June. A major incident was then declared between 12 July and 3 August as the wildfire spread across 606 hectares (1,497 acres) of woods and moorland.

At 13:00 BST on Monday, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service formally stood down its operation response.

Area manager Nathan Stevens said the stop message "marks the end of a significant and complex incident that has required a sustained response".

Despite its "safe conclusion", Tintwistle is one of the longest-running incidents in terms of operational deployment that Derbyshire's fire brigade has ever attended, the service said.

Dr Kirsten Lees, an environmental sciences lecturer specialising in zero carbon at the University of Derby, previously told the BBC Tintwistle is on a par with the biggest wildfires ever seen in England and had covered an area the size of a small town.

Work continues to hand back the site to landowner United Utilities and to recover the remaining equipment used throughout the incident.

Stevens said: "While our firefighters worked tirelessly on the moor, colleagues in control and support teams played a vital role behind the scenes, helping to sustain the response while ensuring we continued to deliver services to our communities throughout the incident.

"I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone involved, including colleagues from across the service, partner agencies, other fire and rescue services, landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and local communities.

"The scale and duration of this wildfire presented significant challenges, and the response would not have been possible without the collective efforts of many organisations and individuals working together."

No cause has been determined for the wildfire at Tintwistle.

Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service previously said that "fires like this are likely caused by human behaviour, whether accidental or deliberate".

The service's wildfire lead Mark King told the BBC: "Given the scale of the wildfire at Tintwistle Moor, we may never be able to establish exactly how the fire started."

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