'Picnic don't BBQ' warning as wildfire risk remains high
Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue are sharing advice as national wildfires this year have passed 500.
Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue are reminding us BBQs are banned in our counties parks.
A heat health alert is in place across Northamptonshire and the UK until tomorrow with conditions still incredibly dry, meaning wildfire risk is high.
It was revealed on Friday that nationally the UK has seen wildfire numbers this year surge past 500, that's more than 7 times the amount by this time last year.
Darren Carson is from Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue.
He says BBQs in our county parks are not allowed:
"Don't have a barbecue in a Country Park or anywhere outside. You know, take a picnic. We're supporting our partners who administer country parks who have a ban on barbecues in this weather as the fire severity index is is high to very high."
If you are having a BBQ at home Darren shares this advice:
"I think if most people go out of the gardens and and look at the grass that you can see by the colour of it and how hard the the ground is. So we're just asking people to take a bit of extra care at the weekend because also it's going to be really tempting to have a family barbecues.
"So what we would say is is think about where you site your BBQ, you know, keep it away from fences, keep it away from trees. If you can have an extinguished source nearby. So you've got a garden hose, have that kind of ready.
The other top tip that we find with is a cause of fire is people disposing of barbecues before they've cool they've cooled down."
Darren says there's another behaviour they see that causes fires in this hot weather, and that's people having bonfire's or burning rubbish in their back gardens:
"We'd say please during this period. Don't don't do that because the risk fire is too high. If you have got some rubbish then take it to your local recycling site and get rid of it that way."