Dartmoor wildfire

National warning amid blaze drama

- BY ADAM ASPINALL

A DEVASTATING wildfire has torn through a beloved national park, leaving a smoking, blackened swathe of land in its wake.

Firefighters battled the blaze at Dartmoor, Devon, for nearly 24 hours as it destroyed 1,230 acres, equivalent to nearly 770 football pitches.

People were urged to avoid the Merrivale and Okehampton areas as the changeable weather may have made the moorland fire behave "unpredictably".