Dunwich Heath is burning — and Ipswich crews are on it

Just after half five on Wednesday evening, a fire took hold on Dunwich Heath. By nightfall it had grown into a major incident: around 90 firefighters, 18 appliances, roughly 100 hectares of heathland alight, and residents being moved out of their homes in the dark.

Crews came from seventeen stations across Suffolk. Two of them were ours — Ipswich Princes Street and Ipswich East. They’re still up there.

What’s happened

• Fire broke out at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, shortly after 5.30pm on Wednesday 29 July.
• It spread rapidly south-west towards St James’ Church, off Westleton Road.
• Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident because of the size and complexity of the blaze.
• Crews worked through the night with Unimogs, drones and 4×4 quad bikes, focusing on protecting homes at Coastguard Cottages and around Mount Pleasant Farm.
• Preparations were made to evacuate 200 caravans at Cliff House Holiday Park. A rest centre was opened; many people left under their own steam.
• By Thursday morning, everyone affected had been evacuated. The service described the situation as live and dynamic.
• There is no risk to Sizewell B. EDF confirmed operations are unaffected and are monitoring.

Dunwich Heath is one of the last decent stretches of coastal lowland heath in Suffolk — Dartford warblers, nightjars, woodlark, adders. It’s a National Trust site inside a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Heather and gorse in late July, after weeks of heat, is about as flammable as English landscape gets.

Where we stand

Ipswich.love exists to shine a light on the good stuff in and around our town. Sometimes that means the other thing: saying out loud that a place we all love is in trouble, and that people from our postcodes are out there in 30-degree heat trying to save it.

To everyone at Suffolk Fire and Rescue, the Suffolk Police officers holding the cordon, the rest centre volunteers, and the National Trust rangers watching a landscape they’ve spent years managing go up — thank you.

To anyone evacuated from Dunwich, Westleton or Cliff House: we’re thinking of you. Seeing the chair of Westleton Village Hall on Sky News earlier was both uplifting and upsetting. It’s brilliant to see a community rally together and pull out all the stops to help their neighbours and visitors caught up in the drama. We can all learn something here.

If you want to help right now, the most useful thing is to stay away. Emergency access routes need to stay clear. Sightseeing costs firefighters time they don’t have.

For anything more concrete, follow @SuffolkFire and the National Trust’s Dunwich Heath channels — recovery appeals, if any, will come from them rather than from us.

Closer to home: our parks are not immune

Ipswich has more green space per head than most towns its size. Christchurch Park, Holywells, Chantry, Landseer, Bourne, Orwell Country Park and the Gipping path — dry grass, scrub, woodland and gorse, all of it a few metres from housing.

The Suffolk fires of 2022 taught us that heathland fires don’t respect the idea that “it can’t happen here.” In one summer that year, Suffolk crews attended around 500 fires in the open.

So while it’s hot and dry, some genuinely boring advice:

• No barbecues in the parks. Disposable ones especially — they stay hot for hours and set light to dry grass long after you’ve gone home.
• No campfires, no fire pits, no sky lanterns.
• Put cigarettes right out and take them with you. A flicked butt into dry grass is all it takes.
• Take glass home. Bottles and broken glass focus sunlight. Bin it or bag it.
• Take all your litter. Same reason, plus it’s just decent.
• Don’t park on dry grass, and don’t block park gates or field entrances — those are fire access routes.

If you see a fire

• Ring 999 straight away. Don’t assume someone else has.
• Give a precise location — what3words, a park gate name, the nearest road. Crews lose minutes hunting for access.
• Don’t try to tackle it. Grass and gorse fires move faster than you can run, and they change direction with the wind.
• Get yourself, your kids and your dog upwind and away.

If smoke reaches you

• Close windows and doors. That’s the standing advice for anyone downwind of Dunwich, and it holds for any fire.
• If you’ve got a heart or lung condition, keep your inhaler or medication to hand and stay indoors while smoke is passing.
• Bring pets in.

One last thing

The amber heat-health alert for the East of England ran through Wednesday and expired at 9am this morning, but the ground is still bone dry. The risk doesn’t drop just because the alert did.

Enjoy the parks. Take your rubbish with you. Leave the barbecue at home.

Who wrote this about Ipswich?

Press Team

The Ipswich.love Press Team are a small group who post press release information in an easy-to-read format. If you have a press release you'd like covered on the site get in touch.