EASTER holidaymakers will have been delighted by the recent record-breaking
temperatures. As we swelter in this incendiary heatwave I wonder if readers
are aware that we could all be in grave danger from a potential firestorm
much, much closer to home.
With the recent prolonged drought, many gorse, farm and moorland fires have
been raging with obvious, disastrous consequences.
Our once-beautiful countryside is now littered with giant industrial wind
turbines now becoming known in Germany and around the world as “ticking
time bombs”.
Because of poor maintenance, oil leaks, and extremely high gear ratios,
many old wind turbines pose an increasing risk of spontaneous combustion
and collapse. This is happening alarmingly often, particularly in Germany.
Hundreds of Scotland’s wind farms have been stupidly built in forests, or
on fragile peat-covered moorland, where because of ecological reasons they
should never have been in the first place, in reality a tinder-dry
touchpaper at the moment.
If one of these giant turbines bursts into flames, scattering debris and
sparks, they could quickly start a rapidly-spreading, raging inferno
because they are proving impossible to extinguish at such a height.
I raised this issue before without a response, but surely it must again be
raised with local authorities, and an urgent risk assessment carried out.
It must be asked: What country-wide, specialist equipment is available, at
a moment’s notice, to extinguish fires at such a height?
George Herraghty,
Lothlorien, Lhanbryde, Elgin, Moray.
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