Had lots of people contact us (thanks) about a fire in the Sandown grasslands by Dinosaur Isle.
John Burns from JBMTB Media got in touch with photos and more detail.
He told us that the fire was between the boating lake and Sandown Business Park, describing it as “well established” and that fire fighters were there on the scene from Ryde, Shanklin, Sandown and Newport.
300m from Dinosaur Isle
It appears to be on the dried out grassland that are used as floodplains.
The fire brigade have set up a tender between the fire and Dinosaur Isle building which is currently around 300m from the fire.
John Burns’ call to VB
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/john-burns-sandown-grassland-fire.mp3]
Thanks also to @isleofwightbob for his updates through Twitter. He tells us that the “Morton Marsh fire crew are attacking fire from Morton Brook side and Sandown Esplanade.”
300-500m of grassland already burnt
He tells us that 300-500m of grassland has already burnt and the fenceposts are still on fire.
4-5 Fire engines are at the scene plus the water bowser. That’s parked in the Dinosaur Isle car park and are running their hoses across the golf course to the grassland.
A Police helicopter is hovering above.
Official Fire service update
UPDATE 16:30 We’ve now had contact from the Isle of Wight fire service to give us an official update.
It’s on what was described as ‘the scrappy bit of land’, but not as far as the sewage works.
The original call came in at 14:36. The fire has now been surrounded by the fire service.
Four fire engines are there – Two from Ryde; Bembridge and Shanklin. Water holder and a Landrover
They estimate the amount of land affected is 200m by 50m.
We’ll bring you more once we have it.
Click on images for larger versions
Panoramic photo
Panoramic photo below sent in by Darren Fuller (Thank Darren!). Click on it to see the full-sized version.
