{"id":153180,"date":"2026-08-02T15:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/153180\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T15:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:30:08","slug":"fire-crews-dealing-with-second-fire-at-beauty-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/153180\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire crews dealing with second fire at beauty spot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A fire has broken out for the second time in three days on Ministry of Defence land in Colchester.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said about 30 firefighters returned to Middlewick Ranges in Mersea Road after being called at 14:20 BST.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">About 50 firefighters <a data-ylk=\"slk:tackled a blaze there on Friday;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cg7mjz35331o?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">tackled a blaze there on Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The site is used for Army training exercises but also has public footpaths and is a woodland home to nightingales, fungi and digger wasps, among other wildlife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;If you live nearby, please keep your windows and doors closed due to the smoke,&#8221; said a spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Please also avoid the area so our crews can work to get access to the incident, use hydrants and keep everyone safe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A close-up showing a bank or small hill of blackened earth and soil. There is blue sky above.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/3449c0eddd4ed6ee263758d256121f7a.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The initial fire at Middlewick Ranges on Friday left the earth scorched [Reuters]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to the Essex Wildlife Trust, the Middlewick Ranges covers about 76 hectares (equivalent to about 106 football pitches).<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tens of hectares of rare acid grassland are found at the site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Acid grassland is a type of natural dry grassland that grows on low fertility, sandy and gravelly soils, similar to lowland heath.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Essex County Fire and Rescue Service says it has experienced one of its <a data-ylk=\"slk:busiest periods;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckg9je2npd4o?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">busiest periods<\/a> in four years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In the week to Thursday, its control team received 2,029 emergency 999 calls, resulting in firefighters being mobilised to 570 separate incidents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Do you have a story suggestion for Essex? Contact us below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow Essex news on <a data-ylk=\"slk:BBC Sounds;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/curation\/p0cjdqpb?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Sounds<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCEssex\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcessex\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a> and <a data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCessex\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More local storiesRelated internet links<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fire has broken out for the second time in three days on Ministry of Defence land in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,48680,49505,13928,49506,2978],"class_list":["post-153180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-essex-county-fire-and-rescue-service","tag-essex-wildlife-trust","tag-firefighters","tag-middlewick-ranges","tag-ministry-of-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}