A week since the fire began (it started in the woods over the edge of the horizon in this scene), there are still 50 firefighters on site, still fires and hotspots that could flare up with a gust of wind.
Grouse have moved to grassland (!) because there's not much heather left here. Amphibian, bird and invertebrate life has been wiped out and there will now be peat erosion issues to deal with as well as trying to control the invasive plants and grasses that will quickly recolonise and take over if allowed.
200 acres of great moorland habitat is gone now, plus the damage to the woodland. The whole area will have to be reseeded so recovery will be costly and slow.
It'll be years before this landscape is as it should be again.
In this photo, the darker patched roughly in the centre, well, just above the centre I should say, on the back of the rocky outcrop is pretty much the area that has been burned. All the dark patches of vegetation in this scene are heather (not in flowers of course)
It was confirmed today (I'm posting this on Friday 17th) that it was wild campers that caused all of this. The firefighters found their camp fire, which got out of control. A very good reason to pay attention to all the high fire risk warning posters all over the land at the moment. So much devastation, so easily could have been avoided.
