NATIONAL Trust staff say they may have narrowly avoided a wildlife tragedy following a moorland blaze.

Tuesday evening’s fire at Marsden Moor near Mount Road and the A62 Manchester Road prompted fears that ground nesting birds could again be wiped out, as they were in a previous fire in May last year.

Crews were called to the National Trust estate and site of Special Scientific Interest at 7.15pm.

It seems however that although the mile-long front of the fire looked spectacular, it affected surface scrub only and did not penetrate the peat.

Gemma Wren, countryside manager at Marsden Moor, said: “It doesn’t look too bad.

“We’ve been out on it and it seems to be mainly surface damage to the dead grass from last year.

“It doesn’t seem to have got into the peat.

“It will have affected some of the birds because they will have started to nest already but we did see some activity yesterday.

“We are hopeful there will be a second wave of breeding because the first would not have survived.

“Any nests there would have gone.

“It’s hard to put an exact number on how many have been lost because they are so widely scattered and without a previous survey we don’t know.

“We are not sure what started it but the fire service say they talked to some climbers who had seen some youths hanging around where the fire started but that’s all we know really.

“Over the next few days we will send volunteers to check the full extent of the fire and we’re hoping that it rains a bit more.

“The rain was very welcome. The timing of the fire meant that there was very little that the fire service could do to tackle it.”

Incident co-ordinators initially suspected they would be involved in an extremely protracted operation but that does not appear to be the case.

The fire service confirmed yesterday it had completed its work.

Speaking at the scene on Tuesday, officers confirmed that the onset of darkness forced them to abandon firefighting and switch to the protection of nearby properties.

Holmfirth, Skelmanthorpe and Mirfield station manager Richard Hagger said: “Thirty-five officers were tackling the blaze at its height.

“Because of the dark we had to call the fire fighters off because it was not safe, they could not see what they were standing on.

“We switched to monitoring it coming toward properties and are on standby so we can step in if needed.”

The cause of the fire is not yet known but arson is suspected.