Dale catches up with rural affairs correspondent Katharine Hay, who ha been keeping an eye on the wildfires in Scotland
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Monday.
00:04My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Rural Affairs Correspondent, Catherine Hay.
00:10And Catherine, we're going to talk, obviously the weather remains glorious outside, but it comes with a risk, which is the wildfires we're seeing across the country.
00:19We're going to talk about that shortly.
00:22But firstly, the front page of today's Scotsman, and we led on university staff threatening to strike amid job loss fears.
00:31This is at Edinburgh University.
00:33We know we had Sir Peter Matheson writing for Scotland on Sunday on the Scotsman website across the weekend, just explaining the extent of the dire risk for higher education.
00:45But it comes against the backdrop of voluntary redundancy program and also concerns about the scale of the job losses at Edinburgh University that could be confirmed over the coming months.
00:57We know what's happened to Dundee University as well, when up to 700 roles have been confirmed or people positions have been confirmed that are going to be cut as a result of the woes that that university is experiencing.
01:14So a ballot has opened.
01:16It will run through the May for affected staff at Edinburgh University.
01:20I think it's one to watch this space because based on the experience we're seeing elsewhere, it could easily be supported and we could be looking at strikes for Edinburgh University moving forward as well.
01:32Catherine, a story from you in the wing there on the wildfire situation.
01:37Can you just update us?
01:38This is down in Galloway and the scale of it's been quite significant.
01:44Yes.
01:45So it's on Thursday, actually, that Scottish Fire and Rescue got a call about a fire in the Galloway Forest Park area, sort of late afternoon.
01:54And it was initially a large grass area.
01:56But as we've seen from footage and from pictures over the weekend, it spread pretty fast.
02:02Some people were saying it could be up to 20 miles, but we're still waiting to get that figure confirmed.
02:07And there was quite a dramatic rescue of four people, two fathers and their sons on early Saturday morning.
02:17Just because this fire, as many wildfires do, especially in this weather that we're seeing, can spread very quickly.
02:23They were not aware at all that the smoke they saw in the distance at the time when they were camping was related to this huge wildfire that's still burning now.
02:33So we understand that there are obviously crews on the ground and they're battling the flames at the moment, but it's still very much there.
02:40And the emergency services have warned people just if you're in the area, keep your windows and doors closed if you can.
02:47I was talking to quite a few residents in that area, just having walked through there and meeting contacts on the ground.
02:55A few of them texting me saying that they're seeing ash all over the cars, certainly within a 10-15 mile radius of where this fire is really taking off.
03:06So it's sort of the loch D area of the Forest Park.
03:11But I think what's really important to note here is that once the weather really brightens up like it has done over the last few days,
03:21it's just that we will have this responsibility to just take extra care because of dead vegetation building up over winter.
03:29As soon as we get the sunshine coming out, dry conditions and a little bit of wind,
03:34any spark can just be a huge risk and take off like we've seen in the Galloway area.
03:40And it's not just the Galloway area.
03:42There's been the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service have been up in the Highlands as well trying to deal with a wildfire that's been going on near Ullapool.
03:50So that just gives you a sort of visual map of how widespread these fires are and that they can kind of take off anywhere,
03:59no matter what sort of landscape, just as long as it's the right conditions like what we've seen,
04:03which is sunny spells, a little bit of wind and yeah,
04:08a lot of vegetation building up over winter when animals haven't maybe been outside or there's been no sort of controlled management of what they call fuel load,
04:18which is vegetation growing.
04:21Catherine, some of our readers will have noted some of the wildfires that have happened over the past couple of years on the continent in some holiday hotspots.
04:31We know places like Greece, for example, have been affected.
04:35But to have it on our doorstep here taking place,
04:39do you think there's perhaps any sort of lack of understanding amongst the public about the risk and how to prevent the risk?
04:49Yeah, it's interesting. I have been covering these fire incidents for years now and you still see comments on social media,
04:56also on Scottish Fire and Rescue social media of people saying wildfires in Scotland,
05:01and people are quite baffled because obviously Scotland is famous for being,
05:04whichever way you look at it, for being a lot of rain.
05:07But the Scottish Environment Protection Agency just released figures showing that we've had the least amount of rainfall compared to normal years.
05:17Not the least, sorry, but there's been a lot less rainfall in the last month compared to other years in the southwest section of Scotland,
05:24which is where the Galloway Forest Park wildfire has happened.
05:28And yeah, we do, we can have very dry conditions.
05:32And I think the other thing is vegetation that we have on the ground,
05:37but also just when the sun shines like we've all seen, it can shine very, very strong.
05:42And it's just the fire chiefs at the Scottish Fire and Rescue say it's not always a hot climate when we get a wildfire.
05:52It's a combination of things like wind, sun, the type of vegetation on the ground, which for us,
05:58we have a lot of things like heather and young trees. They can be particularly vulnerable to just adding to the fire.
06:06But also, ultimately, it is human influence.
06:10That's what all the fire crews are saying, that you could have, you know, great management on the ground.
06:18You could have, you know, re-wetting or other practices that will try and help prevent wildfire, but ultimately it's human influence that starts it.
06:27So that is somebody paying us for the campfire, somebody leaving their barbecue, somebody smoking a cigarette.
06:34Unfortunately, that seems to be what the main cause is.
06:37So that's why, as we've just seen already, parts of Scotland are being devastated already.
06:43And we're only just at the beginning of the wildfire season.
06:46And it's just why these emergency services are urging people that if you are going to go out and enjoy the outdoors,
06:51then just to be incredibly mindful. Ideally, probably don't light the campfire if it is like what it's been the last few days, just because the risk is so high.
07:01And yeah, I think it's just trying to encourage people to enjoy the weather.
07:06But yeah, just treat your kind of camping experiences with caution, I guess, in Scotland's kind of landscape.
07:14You can read all the latest about the wildfires and their impact at Scotsman.com.
07:20Some of Catherine's coverage that we've discussed on this bulletin is available there.
07:25You can go to either the Hayes Way, effectively a slab of content that's on the homepage or via our Environment tab, you'll find some of the latest coverage that's available in the navigation bar.
07:39You can follow us on all social media channels and please go out and buy a copy of The Scotsman tomorrow and support local journalism.
07:46Thanks to you, Catherine, and thanks to everyone else.