Wednesday 12 October 2011

Devasted Headland - a follow-up

In a previous post a couple of weeks ago, I covered the story of
fire-fails-to-devastate-headland and the quote of the affected area being "the size of 14 football pitches". It turns out that 14 Subbuteo tables would be nearer the mark!

As Nick Palmer kindly commented, "I am very familiar with the La Pulente headland having flown over it in my hang glider for several decades. I was expecting our take off area and everything else to have been wiped out but, on visiting it, I was amazed at how small the damaged area was... The actual burnt area is at most the size of one football pitch."


This shot from September did show just about all the damage!






It didn't reach inland along the top of the headland, the dolmen "La Sergente" wasn't harmed.





The wooden fence/style/anti-mountain-biker-measure (for want of a proper word for it!) at the top of the first pic is near the end of the burn area.






Looking downwards to Petit Port and Corbiere...








.. and left a bit.






So, like the TV reports, it's easy to take shots of scorched gorse with the lighthouse in the distance...







.. while concealing the true extent of the damage.





I can only imagine that, perhaps, the fireman said that an area the size of 14 football pitches was at risk - and the reporters misheard or chose to sensationalise.

Sloppy! Would you expect that, before going to press (or to air), a good journo would call back the fire service after the event to double-check their facts?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For some strange reason the powers that be have chopped the tree down on the left of the picture. It was a beautiful tree that gave shelter and also some privacy for an intimate picnic is you were so inclined.
So sad.

Anonymous said...

The tree was obviously blocking a view for someone.
Well known fact , just give the boys a backhander and they'll do a little extra strumming .