The fire service sent out crews from Peel, Port Erin, Kirk Michael and Douglas to deal with a blaze on Peel Hill.

This fire was a controlled burn that had ‘jumped’ the fire break that had been put in place due to high winds.

When they got there, firefighters discovered an uncontrolled blaze that was quickly spreading which was in a remote area that was difficult to access.

A spokesman said: ‘Leaving the fire to burn off by itself was not an option due to the lack of natural fire breaks and weather conditions.’

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The officer in charge assessed the scene and after taking into account the size of the fire, the need for water and the challenges of getting water to the fire, a plan was put together to attack the fire using 45mm jets with water supplied by a water relay.

The nearest water supply was Peel harbour and the water relay had to cover a distance of about 1km on steep inclines and required more than 50 lengths of hose.

A base pump was provided via a pumping appliance and light portable pumps were used as booster pumps as well as a portable dam to provide water for firefighting purposes on the coastal headland.

The spokesman added: ‘This plan pushed fire service personnel to their physical limits and our firefighters should be proud of their efforts in bringing this incident under control.

‘The gradient of the hill and the distance required of the water relay also tested the limits of our firefighting equipment. It should be noted that if it wasn’t for the capabilities of the pumps the water relay would not have been possible and without this modern equipment dealing with this incident would have been much more difficult and prolonged.

‘The fire was extinguished late into the evening but the incident was not closed until this morning due to the need to contain hotspots which were prone to re-ignition with the strong winds.’

The fire service thanked would like to thank the public for their patience with the road closure that was in place for the majority of the day and also to our partners from the police, coastguard and civil defence for their assistance.

‘This incident highlights the need for care when burning off, if you are going to burn off then please ensure that you have put appropriate measures such as fire breaks in place, have suitable fire-fighting media nearby, monitor the burn and take into consideration the weather conditions,’ the fire service spokeman said.

‘Please call the emergency services control room on 697327 to inform them if you are bringing off.

‘The importance of this needs to be highlighted as we frequently attend controlled burns that people have not informed anyone about and during this incident we were also required to attend a different controlled burn that the emergency services control room had not been notified about which stressed our resources even further.’

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