Gareth recalls a mountain fire near Llangollen 50 years ago

* Gareth Edwards has been recalling a mountain fire 50 years ago.

As wildfires rip through large areas of the Welsh countryside and other areas of the UK, retired Llangollen farmer Gareth Edwards has been recalling a frightening blaze not far from his family's farm half a century ago and has given llanblogger permission to reproduce his story here ...

The Mountain Fire

I’d never witnessed the ferocity of a mountain fire until then.

I can’t quite remember the year, but it was the mid-70s. We were going off to Llandudno for the day, I think. We didn’t have holidays as people do today, but Mum and Dad always made sure we had a week away from the farm, going on days out around North Wales.

As we were driving past the Abbey, we could see smoke and flames whipping around the mountain behind it.

Dad stopped the car.

“We’ve got to go back and help.”

So back to Tan Y Castell we went, and Dad headed off in the Land Rover.

Watching your dad head off to fight an enormous fire, and not knowing what was happening, was dreadful. We didn’t have the marvels of modern technology back then. No mobile phones. Once he’d gone, he’d gone.

I was about 15 at the time and had already been driving tractors for a few years. I went down the yard and jumped on the David Brown 885.

As I got close to the house, I was faced with an immovable object — Mum.

“Get off that now! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She was right, of course. I didn’t have a licence and would probably have made things worse, as well as adding to her worries.

But I wanted to go and help, or at least make sure Dad was OK, so eventually I was allowed to go on my bike. I was under strict instructions not to get in the way and not to go anywhere near the fire. What must have been going through Mum’s mind as I pedalled like hell out of the yard, I’ll never know. She must have been worried sick.

As I pedalled down past Dinbren Uchaf, I could see the fire enveloping the mountain. The fire engines were just off the track below Dinbren Isaf. By then, the fire had spread from the Fronfawr up onto the Cefnydd. The firemen had gone as far as they could and had laid hose up the hill. I abandoned my bike and, armed with the shovel I’d grabbed, headed up the hillside.

The smell and the smoke were sickening, but the fire service had managed to put out most of the fire by the time I got there. Then, to my delight — and his obvious shock — I saw Dad, along with neighbouring farmers Peter, John, Jim and Richard, damping down patches of heather that kept relighting. I couldn’t tell whether Dad was angry or secretly pleased that I’d come to help. He never said. After about an hour, he sent me home to tell Mum he was OK and that he’d be back as soon as the fire was out.

When I came down the drive, Mum was outside with Haf, with the glasses as Mum called them (the binoculars) looking up at the mountain.

“Are you both OK?” she asked.

“We’re all good,” I replied.

The look of relief on her face told me just how worried she’d actually been.

Dad came back a couple of hours later. He was black with ash from the fire and absolutely shattered. But he was worried too, because that could so easily have been our mountain.

Thanks to Llangollen Fire Service and all the neighbouring farmers who helped put that fire out that day.

I’m writing this some 50 years after it happened.

Watching the news today, farmers are still battling wildfires, whether started accidentally or, sadly, deliberately. Fortunately, technology means the emergency services can be called much more quickly, and farmers are better equipped to prevent fires spreading across arable land.

Mountain fires are another matter entirely, and they still cause hill farmers a great deal of worry.

Seeing kids messing around with fireworks on social media today is disturbing. We certainly got up to mischief when we were young, but I don’t remember us doing anything that could deliberately destroy someone’s livelihood or property. Society is certainly very different from how it was back then.

I don’t think we ever found out what started that fire. It could have been nothing more than a discarded cigarette butt, as it appeared to have begun just off the rifle range.

Whatever caused it, I can still remember the flames on the mountain, Dad disappearing off to fight them, and Mum standing at Tan Y Castell with the binoculars, waiting for us both to come home.

Fifty years later, that’s the part I remember most.