Firefighters hope a moorland blaze at Fauldhouse will finally be extinguished Wednesday morning.
At one point the weekend blaze on open land covered some 40,000 sq metres.
Speaking to a meeting of West Lothian council’s Public and Community Safety PDSP on Tuesday afternoon Group Commander John Bruton of the SFRS told councillors: “We are still in attendance.”
He added: “If the weather helps us our activities will be finished tomorrow morning.”
G /Cmdr Bruton added: “Although we have reduced our attendance to four appliances, I can assure you that if we need to continue our presences overnight, we will do so. We are working with our partners in Forestry Commission, and we hope that this will conclude shortly.”
Firefighters were called to the grassland outside Fauldhouse at lunchtime on Saturday.
At one point more than fifty fire-fighters tackling a “well developed blaze “covering an area the size of five football pitches.
Labour councillor George Paul asked; “Do we know if it was deliberate?
G/Cmdr Bruton said:” We don’t have that information as yet there was a significant amount of damage in the area and along with our firefighting activities, we are working with Police Scotland to see if we can establish that.”
Conservative councilor Alison Adamson said: “I just want to say thank you to everybody for the enormous effort by the fire services and other agencies It is difficult for those who are not involved to appreciate how dangerous it is”
SNP councillor Maria MacAulay said: “Thank you to everybody that been involved it’s been an exceptional effort.”
By Stuart Sommerville Local Democracy Reporter
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
