A fire on Salisbury Plain is being left to burn out naturally due to its location within a high-risk military zone, officials have confirmed.
The blaze, located at Ball Down on the Salisbury Plain Training Area (SPTA), is within a designated Impact Area where it is too dangerous for firefighters or Ministry of Defence (MOD) personnel to intervene.
A spokesperson for Salisbury Plain Training Area (SPTA) said: “We’re aware of a fire at Ball Down on SPTA. This is contained within the Impact Area and due to the dangerous nature of the area, fires that start there cannot be extinguished by the Fire Service or the MOD but must be left to burn out on their own.
“As such, while DWFireRescue are aware of the fire, they are not currently involved.
“We are monitoring the fire progress to ensure it does not spread from its current location.”
Because of the hazardous environment created by military training, including the use of munitions and explosives, the MOD cannot safely tackle fires in this area. Instead, officials continuously monitor any outbreaks to ensure they remain contained.
The MOD said it takes the risk of fire very seriously and implements numerous fire prevention and control strategies to reduce the likelihood and impact of such incidents. These include constructing stone tracks around Impact Areas to act as fire breaks and implementing strict restrictions on the use of live ammunition during heightened wildfire risk.
The spokesperson added: “We take our role in trying to prevent and control fires from our activities extremely seriously. Impact areas are largely constructed with the potential for fires in mind and include stone tracks which act as a fire break to prevent the transfer of a fire onto the wider estate.”
A range of preventative measures are also employed throughout the year. These include grazing arrangements with local farmers to reduce vegetation in summer, fire watch schemes to detect and track fires, and suspensions on ammunition use during dry conditions.
They continued: “MOD has a robust wildfire policy that restricts the use of ordnance, munitions, and explosives when training is taking place during elevated wildfire \[risk] however, there is always the potential for a fire to ignite owing to the nature of Defence training.
“We monitor the risk of fires across the training estate throughout the year, working hard to maintain a balance between the needs of our military training audience and the local communities in which we sit.
“We use a range of measures to prevent and control range fires, including grazing programmes, agreed with local farmers to keep the grass short during the summer months, ammunition bans during extremely dry conditions; and fire watch schemes to ensure fires are constantly monitored.”
