‘It was like Armageddon’: Stourbridge wildfire leaves 1,000 trees set to be felled as community faces years of recovery
Homes have been destroyed, hotspots are still reigniting, and 1,000 burnt trees must be removed from Stourbridge Golf Club alone because they’re now deemed to be a risk
A week on from the “apocalyptic” wildfire that tore through Stourbridge, destroying 19 homes and damaging 18 more, the scale and true cost of the destruction is still emerging.
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The blaze, which spread across more than 500 acres in scenes described by firefighters as some of the worst they had seen, left a trail of devastation through homes, woodland and Stourbridge Golf Club, where half the course has been put out of action.
LBC was given an exclusive tour of the club by chairman Simon Markey, who said around 1,000 trees now need to be removed because they have been left dangerously unsafe.
He also said four fires reignited on the golf course on Tuesday, confirming the fears of firefighters about hotspots still burning beneath the surface a week after the main blaze.
Describing the aftermath, Mr Markey told LBC: “I think I said to you last week it was like Armageddon. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
He said the immediate challenge facing the club is safety: “The problem we’ve got is the trees are dangerous,” he said. “A thousand of them have got to come down.”
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Tree specialists have already begun surveying the course, while staff have started the clean-up and tried to protect the areas that were spared.
“We started watering and looking after the stuff that is okay, otherwise that will die as well,” Mr Markey said.
The damage stretches across huge sections of the site.
A greenkeeper’s storage shed containing machinery was destroyed, around 600 metres of hedgerow will need to be removed, and seven holes have been significantly affected, with the lower half of the course suffering the worst of the fire.
In some places, the flames moved with terrifying speed.
Mr Markey said he had been on the course with the club’s director of greens, trying to get water onto affected areas when the fire suddenly took hold.
“They weren’t on fire one minute, and then the next minute the whole place is on fire,” he said.
“It went whoosh, like somebody switched a gas hob on.”
Even now, the smell of smoke hangs over the course and surrounding roads, while firefighters have remained on site damping down hotspots.
Mr Markey said it could take weeks to reopen part of the course, and months before it can begin to resemble a proper golf course again.
For the surrounding community, he believes recovery will take far longer. “My best guesstimate, three to five years to rebuild,” he said.
“The community here is going to be living with this for years.”
West Midlands Police have also begun an investigation into reports of a burglary from a home that was badly damaged in the blaze.
Valuables including watches, a coin collection, pairs of cufflinks and a ring are alleged to have been stolen from the house in the aftermath of the fire.
The wildfire in Stourbridge was one of a number of major blazes across the West Midlands, with West Midlands Fire Service chief fire officer Simon Tuhill saying crews had attended 10 “significant” fires across the region on the day it broke out.
A number of people were hospitalised in the wider fire outbreaks.
Across the West Midlands, 54 people were treated by paramedics, including 19 taken to hospital, while one firefighter was also taken to hospital and later discharged.
The Prime Minister, visiting the scene in Stourbridge, said he had “never seen scenes like this in Britain”, while announcing a temporary ban on disposable barbecues across England, Scotland and Wales.
He described Britain as a “tinderbox” and urged the public not to light open fires or dispose of cigarettes carelessly during the prolonged dry conditions.
Fire chiefs are investigating the possibility the Stourbridge blaze may have been linked to A-level celebrations, after reports emergency services were told students may have been using barbecues and burning notepads on A-Level results day.
For Mr Markey, though, the focus now is on what comes next.
The upper part of the course narrowly escaped the same level of destruction, something he believes may have saved the club.
“We were lucky in some respects that the fire didn’t make its way over the ridge,” he said. “I think that would be it for the golf club.”