A LARGE wildfire covering more than one thousand square metres took 16 firefighters hours to extinguish.

Four crews from various fire stations were dispatched to Black Combe on Sunday afternoon after a blaze broke out on the Lake District fell.

The fire required a multi-agency team effort in controlling the blaze.

Sixteen firefighters from the Walney Command Unit and Broughton Station responded to the incident which took over four hours to scale down.

A spokesman for Walney Command Unit said: “Walney Command Unit attended a large wildfire on Black Combe.

“The incident was scaled down following hard work from the crews to contain the fire in difficult conditions.”

Two wildfire teams used four pumps to extinguish the blaze which Barrow Station Manager Paul Milburn said was most likely started ‘unintentionally’.

He said: “It was quite a substantial fire.

“The most probable cause is that the fire started out as accidental.

“There is a possibility walkers could have unintentionally started the fire by possibly dropping a cigarette - we’re not entirely sure.”

Mr Milburn is urging the public to remain ‘vigilant’ of accidental fires warmer weather arrives.

“Now we’re entering the summer period where the weather is a lot drier, people need to be very vigilant,” he said.

“Don’t discard any cigarettes or have any bonfires when out camping because they can very quickly turn into uncontrolled burns which will require a firefighter response.”

Mr Milburn praised the ‘team effort’ in effectively extinguishing the blaze.

He said: “All the people on the team acted really effectively to prevent the further spread of the fire.

“It was a real team effort in extinguishing the fire.”

Firefighters also attended another large wildlife at Black Combe last month which left crews from Millom, Broughton, Bootle, and Ulverston on the scene for two hours.

The crews were called out to the fire, which covered an area of 400-500 square metres, on the fell side near Silecroft.

The source of the blaze was an attempted controlled fire of gorse bush, according to fire station manager Ian Westall.

At the time of the incident, Mr Westall said: “It is frustrating that it was a controlled fire as normally we are informed of them so we are on hand to react if something goes wrong.

“This was just left to burn.”