Wildfire warning issued after blaze on common
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service were called to Eversley Common, near Basingstoke, at around 16:00 BST on Saturday.
Crews used beaters and hose reels to tackle the fire, which covered about five hectares of woodland and gorse.
It took more than five hours, two fire engines, multiple 4×4 vehicles, water carriers and support from forces in Surrey and Berkshire to extinguish the blaze.
The cause of the fire was unknown but crews from Hampshire were due to return to the site on Sunday to check for hotspots, said the fire service.
You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Community group raises money to buy woodland
People in Stroud have successfully raised £66,000 to purchase a local woodland. The community benefit society, Stroud Woodland, are now in the process of purchasing Slade Wood, with the hope of protecting it for future generations. Slade Wood forms part of continuous woodland beginning above Summer Street and extending along the Slad valley to Swifts Hill. Co-director of Stroud Woodland , Ben Spencer describes the wood as "a little pocket of woodland which is really treasured". More news stories for Gloucestershire Listen to the latest news for Gloucestershire The Stroud Woodland Community Benefit Society was set up in 2010, to purchase Folly Wood, just north of Stroud. "What people really enjoy is having the opportunity to spend time in the space on their own or with their family, at Folly Wood," said Mr Spencer. This week, the group announced it had raised the necessary £66,000 to buy Slade Wood, a steep three-acre piece of woodland on the edge of the Slad Valley, on the outskirts of Stroud. "Because it's tucked away, it's a bit of a hidden gem," Mr Spencer said. Members of the public who bought shares to fund the purchase will get no financial return. Mr Spencer insists the benefit is social and environmental. "It's for people taking some time out. People locally have grown up and visited it over the years, as kids and teenagers, as well as parents of young children," he said. Once they have taken ownership of Slade Wood, the group plans to keep it open to the public, as it was under the previous owner. "We thought there was a danger it could be bought privately and fenced off with people no longer able to have access to the space," Mr Spencer said. On the environmental side, the group points to successes at Folly Wood where the creation of clearings and ponds has increased biodiversity. Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More on this story Campaign launched to buy waterfall beauty spot We bought woodland where we walk our dogs for £900k Woodland at Unesco site for sale after 300 years
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Resident doctors strike in the face of a tiring public
Up to 50,000 NHS resident doctors are currently on strike over pay, their twelfth walkout since March 2023. So what? This month Labour announced an ambitious plan meant to revive a health service that is on its knees. Any detail from that has now been overtaken by a downing of tools that will severely disrupt medical treatments; could encourage similar action by nurses; and may lead to patient deaths. Here we go again. Ending resident doctor strikes was one of the health secretary Wes Streeting's first priorities. Last year he struck a deal with the British Medical Association to increase pay by 22 per cent. This was a temporary boost, since it only applied to 2023-25 salaries. For 2025-26, the rise was 5.4 per cent. Not good enough. This is better than the 3.6 per cent pay rise awarded to nurses in June 2025. But the BMA wants full 'pay restoration'. It says the salaries of resident doctors, who are still in training, are 21 per cent lower in real terms than in 2008 because of inflation. Damned statistics. The BMA uses the Retail Price Index (RPI) to reach this number. The government uses another measure, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is the official metric used to calculate changes to the cost of living, based on a basket of consumer goods. If CPI is used, pay has only fallen by 4.7 per cent since 2008, according to the Nuffield Trust. Hang on. The BMA's insistence on using RPI is based, in part, on the fact that the government uses it to calculate rail fares and interest payments on student debt. The latter is particularly relevant. Although they earn a relatively high salary after 5 years in training (£61,825 a year, excluding compulsory overtime), doctors emerge from five years of medical school owing as much as £100,000. Ouch. That's nearly double the average debt pile of British graduates. Unlike many other professionals, medical trainees also spend thousands of pounds on exam fees and courses. Another thing. Pay isn't the only grievance, with resident doctors also complaining about a shortage of speciality training posts, which means many get stuck on the middle rungs of the career ladder; an arcane placement system that requires them to move around the country at a few months' notice; and gruelling hours and stressful working conditions. Cash-strapped. This time round, the health secretary is less sympathetic and says there is no more money for pay rises. Last year's increases ate up more than half of the extra £10.4 billion given to the NHS. Streeting would rather be getting on with plans to revamp the health system. These are centred around shifting care from hospitals to the community; making better use of digital tech; and preventing sickness in the first place. Shifting opinions. The public seems to be on his side. In 2024, more than half of Brits supported strike action by trainee doctors. This has fallen to 32 per cent. The head of the Royal College of Nursing has said it is 'grotesque' to hand doctors bigger increases than nurses. Negotiations. In an unsuccessful bid to avert the strikes, Streeting made several last-minute offers, including accelerating doctors' training so they progress through the pay scales faster; giving them part of their pensions upfront; and subsidising exam fees. The toll. Previous rounds of strikes led to the cancellation of 1.5 million planned appointments, as well as five deaths. Labour is eager to avert more cancellations, having made much of bringing down waiting lists. NHS England has not postponed scheduled non-urgent care. What's more… The BMA has criticised this decision, saying it puts lives at risk. Critics have pinned the responsibility on them, saying they chose to strike. Either way, patients will suffer.
Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
2 volunteers die fighting Turkey wildfires, raising deaths to 17 since late June
ISTANBUL (AP) — The death toll from wildfires outside the city of Bursa in northwest Turkey rose to four late Sunday after two volunteer firefighters died. The pair died in hospital after they were pulled from a water tanker that rolled while heading to a forest fire, news agency IHA reported. Another worker died earlier at the scene of the accident and a firefighter died Sunday after suffering a heart attack. Their deaths raised Turkey's wildfire fatalities to 17 since late June, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in Eskisehir, western Turkey. Huge fires around Bursa, Turkey's fourth-largest city, broke out over the weekend, leading to more than 3,500 people fleeing their homes. On Monday morning, fog-like smoke from ongoing fires and smouldering foliage hung over the city. Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have been fueling the wildfires, with Turkey and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean experiencing record-breaking heatwaves. The fires around Bursa were among hundreds to have hit Turkey over the past month. While firefighting teams have contained the damage to a limited number of homes, vast tracts of forest have been turned to ash. The water tanker crew comprised volunteers from nearby Bolu province heading to the village of Aglasan, northeast of Bursa, to combat a blaze when the vehicle fell into a ditch while negotiating a rough forest track, IHA reported. Turkey battled at least 44 separate fires Sunday, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said late Sunday. He identified two fires in Bursa province, as well as blazes in Karabuk, northwest Turkey, and Kahramanmaras in the south, as the most serious. The government declared disaster areas in two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik. Prosecutions have been launched against 97 people in 33 of Turkey's 81 provinces in relation to the fires, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said. A crowd of people gathered Sunday evening outside a police station in the village of Harmancik, 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Bursa, after learning a suspected arsonist was detained there. The angry crowd demanded for the suspect to be handed over to them. The crowd dispersed after police assured them a thorough investigation would be undertaken.
