Firefighters battles against wildfires in Britain

Firefighters battled a series of wildfires in Britain on Wednesday (February 27), including a large moorland blaze outside the northern English city of Manchester, as the country experienced its warmest winter weather on record.

A fire started on Tuesday evening on Saddleworth Moor, an expanse of hills that is popular with hikers. It has since spread to an area about one-and-a-half square kilometres.

Five fire engines and two specialist moorland firefighting units were at the scene, with incident commander Laura Boocock admitting it was one of the biggest grass fires she had ever seen, but it was 'nothing they can't handle'.

The blaze near Marsden started at 7.30pm and quickly spread to cover 250 acres, forcing the closure of the A62. Witness Harry Broughton tweeted: 'Never seen anything like this - had a drive up as these things look terrible.'

Dramatic photos show the scale of the raging inferno as crews battled through the night to contain it, and smoke could still be seen from 20 miles away this morning despite it now having died down.

Elsewhere, in East Sussex, two fires started within an hour at Ashdown Forest as several huge blazes broke out around the country yesterday amid the unprecedented February weather that saw temperatures hit 21C (70F).

Large flames could be seen rising from the hillside as witnesses described "apocalyptic" scenes.

Five crews and two specialist moorland firefighting units were trying to contain the blaze. There have been no reports of any injuries.

The fire comes after Britain recorded its warmest winter day with a temperature of 21.2 deg Celsius in Kew Gardens in London.

Fire officials have not yet commented on what may have caused the blaze.

Last summer fire on Saddleworth Moor, which required army assistance to tackle, took more than three weeks to extinguish.

Separately, on Tuesday a wildfire started in woodland made famous in AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories. Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, the inspiration for Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, suffered two fires that began within an hour of each other.

The local fire service said that "unusually warm weather this week" meant that the ground was drier than usual and could lead to a greater risk of outdoor fires.