Member's statement: Wildfires
Member's statement by Mr Robin Swann on .
- MLA
- Mr Robin Swann
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 24 June 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Wildfires
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4497462
Read the official Assembly record
Text
It has been reported that today will potentially be the warmest day of the year. As we move into the summer and our summer holidays, I want to raise public awareness of wildfires across Northern Ireland, which have been detrimental to farmland and our environment over the past number of years. I commend the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service for its work on not just tackling those fires but promoting the "Stay safe" message to people who use the countryside for recreation and work. To put things in context, in 2020-21, there were 1,948 wildfires reported and tackled in Northern Ireland. That figure came down dramatically in 2023-24 to 925, which is a reduction of almost 50%. Wildfires are still having a detrimental impact on our environment and, occasionally, on livestock, but that reduction shows the impact of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service's proactive approach to educating the general public and engaging with rural communities and schools on its fire safety message, which is to stay alert, not to use open fires and not to be careless with materials, such as barbecues or any other open flame, that generate fire. To those who enjoy the Northern Ireland countryside, especially in the summer, I put on record this message: be fire-aware and fire-safe and support the work of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
227 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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