A holiday park containing about 200 caravans has been evacuated after a wildfire broke out on the Suffolk coast, as nearby Sizewell B power station said it was “closely monitoring” the blaze.
Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident after being called to reports of a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, shortly after 5.30pm on Wednesday.
In an update on Thursday, incident commander Christopher May said crews would continue to “fight fire” in the area for the next 24 to 48 hours because of the “size and complexity of the incident”.
As of Thursday afternoon, the fire covered about 100 hectares and 18 fire engines were at the scene, Suffolk County Council said.
The council said Cliff House Holiday Park, containing some 200 caravans, had been completely evacuated as a precaution.
The blaze is a few miles way from nuclear power station Sizewell B and the construction site for new power station Sizewell C.
On Thursday, an EDF spokesperson said the fire was “not affecting operations at Sizewell B power station”.
The energy supplier said they were “closely monitoring the situation” and it is understood Sizewell B has an emergency plan in place that covers a range of scenarios including a fire on site.
A spokesperson for Sizewell C said the construction site was also “closely monitoring” the fire, adding “it currently poses low risk to Sizewell C, given its distance from site and watercourses in between”.
“Sizewell C sites and offices continue to operate as normal, but we are continuously assessing the impacts of smoke and the effects on the road network to ensure that our people remain safe and emergency services have priority,” they said.
“We remain available to support the local community, in collaboration with the local council and police and Fire and Rescue Services.”
The fire service posted a video of damage caused by the blaze, which has spread to parts of RSPB Minsmere nature reserve, with the footage showing blackened trees and scorched ground.
Speaking near the site, RSPB Suffolk area manager Adam Rowlands said the scale of the blaze was “unprecedented in living memory” and the damage was “quite devastating”.
He said: “It’s been tinder dry so with the drought conditions, all the vegetation, the ground is extremely dry and so once this fire took off, it spread dramatically and quickly.
“It’s spreading through the pine trees so in places that’s 20 metres high.”
Mr Rowlands said the affected land, some of which is managed by the National Trust and the RSPB, was home to rare wildlife including nightjars and it would take “more than a decade” for the habitat to recover.
He added: “It’s been years of effort to get the habitats in such good condition.
“You know, the record numbers of nightjars and Dartford warblers and nightingales breeding on the site this summer – so years of hard work to get those bird populations to really evolve, and then absolutely devastated and wiped out by this one event, so it’s really heartbreaking for the team and all the effort they do.”
Temperatures soared across parts of the UK on Wednesday, reaching into the 30s in some places.
Separately, in Scotland, crews said they were making “significant progress” tackling a wildfire in the Cairngorms that broke out two weeks ago.
A number of homes in the remote region were evacuated as plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, and vast swathes of trees, heather and grasslands have been left charred and blackened.
