Crews from eight of the ten Kerry fire stations were involved in fighting almost 30 gorse fires across the county from Valentia to Killarney overnight.
Some of the fires in the Sneem area of south Kerry and in Killarney threatened homes.
Dingle firefighters battling a raging gorse fire last night. Kerry Fire Service was stretched to its limits with 25 callouts. Some of the fires came within metres of houses. pic.twitter.com/4ErTxwPjZl
— Seán Mac an tSíthigh (@Buailtin) February 11, 2021
The fires, ahead of the 1 March cut-off point under the Wildlife Act for burning scrubland, had begun as "controlled" or supervised burnings in some instances but were driven out of control by strong winds.
However, a fire in the early hours at Mangerton on the edge of the forest of the Killarney National Park was not controlled and fire crews from Killarney attended at around 2.30 am.
A second large fire at nearby Loughquittane had begun as a controlled burn but it too spread.
One of the most serious blazes occurred in the vicinity of Inch beach and fire crews attending that fire had to divert to also attend a shed fire at nearby Callinafercy.
A massive gorse fire lit up the area of Keel Mountain and a social media post from Realt na Mara Shelfish company at Cromane beach showed the sea lit up by the mountain fire.
A huge fire was reported at Tahilla in Sneem, with flames reaching several metres in height. Three units of the fire service attended and the flames came within 200 metres of houses.
Strickeen Mountain in the Gap of Dunloe, a popular walking area was also set alight; as was scrubland at Castlemaine, Fieries and at locations in north and west Kerry.
Kerry County Council has confirmed there were 28 separate gorse/field fire incidents in the 24-hour period and in many cases fire fires were attended by a number of brigades.
Meanwhile, firefighters from Dundalk and Carlingford in Co Louth extinguished four separate gorse fires on the Cooley Peninsula today.
The fires were in the Ballymakellett area on the western side of the peninsula where the gorse was said to be quite dry.
They were visible for miles around but were extinguished by nightfall.
No injuries were reported.
