South Yorkshire’s fire service has won a national award for its response to a major wildfire, which crews spent 22 days tackling last year.

The fire affected a huge area of rare peat moorland, which is a site of special scientific interest and home to several rare species of animal and plants.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue won the Incident Management Award at CIR Magazine’s Business Continuity Awards 2021 for its work to coordinate the response to the incident, which involved 403 fire appliance movements across 523 hours in May and June 2020.

Area Manager Stewart Nicholson, said: “Responding to large scale incidents such as this isn’t simply about the work of our fantastic firefighters on the ground. It’s also about the coordination of activity behind the scenes, the implementation of plans for managing an incidents of this size and collaboration with our partners, including the local authority and Natural England. This award is fitting recognition for all of the efforts which went into managing the incident.

“Even during the early stages of the pandemic, our frontline crews remained ready, willing and able to respond to every 999 call they received- including major fires such as this one. Our response to this blaze right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic is therefore also testament to the control measures we had in place and the diligence of our staff in following them.”

At the same awards, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s Emergency Planning Officer Russ Parramore won the Adviser of the Year Award for his work with the National Fire Chief’s Council’s business continuity committee.