The blaeberries are out in the pinewoods, and we’re eating them as we walk when we realise we’re close to an area of the forest where there was a fire at the end of May. We’re in a WhatsApp group set up to keep an eye out for such things. Neighbours will post when they’re burning garden waste so we know not to worry. Someone messaged asking whether anyone knew what the smoke was in an out-of-the-way part of the forest. A sortie to check it out and a rapid response caught the fire early enough for it to be contained.
When we get to where the fire was, we’re shocked. Some smaller trees and junipers have been burned to a crisp and the thick bark of granny pines is scorched. The understory, previously thick with heather and blaeberry, is burned flat. Needles are rust-coloured, dead. Cones and flakes of bark lie in black and unnatural browns, though crisp bright leaves of new-growth blaeberries are already starting to push through. In a boggier area, drier, standing deadwood, so important to the ecosystem, has taken a terrible hit: whole snags are burned black, some have had to be felled. The grass nearby is an improbably bright green. It’s hard to believe that what we see is new growth since the fire.
Later, I return with a friend who assisted the fire brigade in controlling and extinguishing the fire. He shows me the remains of a campfire in a hollow between some lovely granny pines, though you couldn’t miss the signposts saying no fires. It’s shocking to see where they’ve hacked off branches; there’s a metal grille, the scorched remains of cans, and pieces of glass so softened by the heat they feel more like seaglass. My friend reckons the fire was so hot that even if people thought it was extinguished, it continued to smoulder underneath, perhaps for hours or days before it caught.
As we leave, a couple of Scotch argus butterflies, beautiful signifiers of late summer, flit over the heather. The woods feel solid and safe again, but it’s clear how vulnerable these pinewoods are, how careful we all must be, and how lucky we have been.
• Country diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
