THE OLD adage ‘red sky at night, shepherds delight’ holds little truth – as proven by the devastating fire which engulfed Loch Doon's hillside over the weekend.

The emergency services have since been commended for their efforts in containing the fire, which escalated to reach over 25 square kilometres of hillside beginning on the afternoon of Saturday April 13.

The blaze continued to spread over the two following days, with the Forestry Commission, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire Service working tirelessly to minimise the impact on the surrounding forest, farms and local wildlife.

The Scottish Farmer spoke to one farmer who had a lucky escape, with his hill sheep farm narrowly avoiding damage thanks to the swift interference of the emergency services on Sunday morning.

Billy Welsh, who looks after 3500 acres and 1500 Blackface ewes on the edge of Loch Doon, recounted the events of the weekend: “We were first told about the fire when we finished up on the farm on Saturday evening. To begin with, we couldn’t see anything, but then we went out the back and looked up to see the whole skyline ablaze. We headed out in the pick-up to monitor the situation as the night went on, watching the flames edging closer and closer to the farm.

“On the Sunday morning the blaze had reached our farm boundary,” he continued. “If it hadn’t been for that moment, where two helicopters had swooped in and started dousing the flames then our farm would have been next in line.

“Thankfully the emergency services did a fantastic job and were out working all day containing the blaze. At one point, they started to evacuate people from the houses surrounding us, but we couldn’t leave the farm as we had sheds full of pregnant ewes we were checking on every two hours,” he said.

“Although we came out unscathed, it’s scary to think if the fire had reached our farm then it would have wiped us and another three farms out. Although the incident has been bad enough, it could have been a colossal disaster with young lambs on the hill. I don’t think a lot of trees have been burnt with mostly open hill ground affected, but local wildlife will have been hit hard.”

Loch Doon is a popular destination for bird watchers and reportedly their Osprey nest has been unharmed, but it is still too early to determine the impact the blaze has had on ground nesting birds.

Mr Welsh went on to stress that more information was needed to warn the public of the risk of fires in the area: “Plenty of people make their livelihood in Loch Doon and the area is very popular with tourists. We don’t want to risk shutting the area down, but more education is needed for the public to make them aware of fire dangers.”

A spokesperson for Forestry and Land Scotland commented: “We’ve had some of our forestry workforce out helping and they are staying up there for the moment to help deal with any hot spots and prevent the fire from starting up again. It is very sad that an extensive area of open hill ground has been burnt which will have caused a lot of damage to the plants and animals which live in the area.”

There has been speculation that two young men were caught on camera setting the fire and have subsequently been arrested. No official statement has been given.