Beach in lockdown with two-day forest fire blamed on 'irresponsible' visitors

A POPULAR beach was locked down for a second successive weekend after fire broke out in adjacent woodland.

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor [e-mail]

Visitors already at the site were asked to give firefighters “space to work” while they tackled the blaze.

Nearby residents could smell smoke from the fire in Newborough Forest, which borders the beach of Traeth Llanddwyn.

Illegal wild campers were thought to be to blame and site manager Natural Resources Wales (NRW) slammed their “irresponsible behaviour”.

The local community has been living on a knife-edge this summer as tinder-dry conditions brought the risk of a major blaze. Extra patrols were mounted over the Bank Holiday weekend but pleas not to light BBQs and campfires went unheeded.

On Sunday evening local NRW wardens closed the road gates at Newborough Forest, through which visitors must travel to reach the beach. They reported a small fire in the forest had been extinguished but was at risk of reigniting.

Wardens said they shut the site as a precautionary measure to safeguard visitors and the local community. The closure was extended through most of Bank Holiday Monday, when the blaze was found to have restarted.