Dunwich Heath fire damage may take months to assess

National Trust managers said it could be months before the scale of the damage at Dunwich Heath is quantified.

The heathland fire on the Suffolk coast started on 29 July and engulfed an area the size of 210 football pitches across the nature reserve and on a small part of the neighbouring RSPB Minsmere.

Suffolk Fire Service withdrew all resources from the heath at 17:00 BST on Wednesday and handed control of the site back to the National Trust.

"It's so starkly different to what it should be. We've got a lot of work to do over certainly the immediate couple of months to check that the site's safe," said Matt Wilson, the National Trust's countryside and coast manager.

"This time last year this would have been an absolute sea of pink and purple with the heather, it would be alive with birds... [but now] there's nothing here, it's eerily silent for what should be absolutely alive.

"This is heart-breaking... I'm still trying to process what that actually means and what those impacts will be."

The fire service explained the incident had transitioned into a "re-inspection phase" with officers continuing to monitor the site until Friday evening, but not being there full-time.

A final site visit is planned for Monday to decide if the incident is formally over, but the service warned the area must still be treated as a fire scene that is strictly off-limits to the public.

More stories on the Dunwich Heath wildfire:

• Will tourism suffer following devastating wildfire?
• Suffolk heathland fire stood down as major incident
• Volunteers say work to tackle fire 'relentless'

Wilson warned of dangers including unexploded ordnance dating from the site's time as a World War Two training ground, and falling trees.

"We need to check all of those sorts of things before we can even get round to start looking at habitat damage," he said.

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