As I live right under the bit of moor you refer to I was very interested to read your post Man of the Back Country, and so thanks for the pics.

However, it is a great shame that, unlike other Dartmoor Commoners Associations, Chagford's have neglected their swailing duties for many years now - so those of us who care about the environmental management of the moor have to rely on people such as these army cadets inadvertantly starting wildfires. There was a presumably inadvertant wildfire on Meldon Hill back in March which cleared alot of the gorse forest up there.

1 mile northeast of Kit Rocks is in deep moorland, and would place it roughly north of Sittaford Tor. I was up there yesterday and you get a huge vista of the moor to the north and southwards to Postbridge. Yet there was no sign of scorched moorland, so I must assume that this "major wildfire" happened in a fold of the land beyond one of the ridges to the north.

Because this wildfire happened in the middle of the day I guess some busybody must have reported it which is why we had the scandalous situation of huge amounts of taxpayers money being wasted on the emergency services response. Heaven knows why they didn't just monitor it from a distance and let it run its course. As another poster has suggested these fires are low intensity, and in this part of the deep moor there is just tussock grass and many streams, not to mention the East Dart, forming natural firebreaks.

I doubt it very much that it would have reached Postbridge, but wish it had. It wouldn't have done any damage.

But many thanks for the informative post anyway.