The last fire crew left Morfa Bychan at 7.50 this morning, almost 60 hours after the first call sent firefighters to the burning cliffs at Pendine on Sunday evening.
Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service says the wildfire, which sent flames running down the cliff towards the beach on Sunday night, burned through around 10 hectares of gorse and scrubland.
Sixteen stations were mobilised in total: Whitland, Tenby, Carmarthen, Pembroke Dock, Tumble, Narberth, Haverfordwest, Kidwelly, Llandeilo, Aberystwyth, Milford Haven, Llanelli, Llandysul, Port Talbot, Lampeter and Crymych.
That is seven more than the nine fighting it on Monday morning, with crews eventually drawn from as far as Aberystwyth and Port Talbot.
Firefighters used hose reel jets, main jets, wildfire knapsack sprayers and beaters to contain and put out the fire, and the service says crews were helped by local farmers with water tankers.
A reinspection of the site is due later today.
Residents out of their homes, then a Monday flare-up
The fire started at Morfa Bychan on Sunday evening and ran up over the cliff, with a number of residents having to leave their properties and find somewhere else to stay overnight.
It was still burning 15 hours later, with beach parking shut on Monday and the community council asking people not to drive into the village to watch, photograph or film it.
A flare-up in changing conditions on Monday afternoon brought a fresh wave of 999 calls, with the service assuring people that crews were aware and in attendance.
Community council chairman Andrew Shaw, who watched the fire travel up from the bay and over the top of the cliff, said it was “difficult to overstate just how frightening the situation was”, crediting the emergency services and local farmers for preventing far worse destruction.
The Caban meeting is at 6.30pm tonight
The village now gets its say. The public meeting called by Pendine Community Council is at 6.30pm this evening at The Caban, with Morfa Bychan the first item on the agenda.
The council says it has grown increasingly aware in recent months of overnight camping at the bay, along with criminal damage and other antisocial behaviour, and has been working with agencies on measures it hopes will stop the camping and address the wider concerns.
Shaw has asked people to come in a constructive frame of mind rather than treat the evening as “an opportunity to vent”, promising residents will get the chance to have their say.
No cause has been given for the fire, and Shaw has said it would not be appropriate to speculate, while acknowledging many in the village will have formed their own views.
The service’s punishing August has run on elsewhere: crews only left the six-day Rhandirmwyn wildfire on Tuesday. That same afternoon, fire gutted Rheola House in the Neath Valley, where damping down continued into this morning.
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