More than €1m has been spent battling wildfires by Cork County Council in the past four years, it has been revealed.

The cost of land fires, such as gorse fires, was highlighted by Councillor Chris O’Sullivan today, who revealed that the fires have cost in the region of €250,000 every year from 2013 to 2016.

The figure is expected to rise this year, as the number and scale of fires increases.

Since 2012, Cork fire services have been called out to deal with 2,600 wildfires, O’Sullivan said.

One of the biggest fires tackled by the Cork County Fires Service so far this year was the fire in Gougane Barra, which saw 30 firefighters dispatched from Bantry, Macroom, Dunmanway and Skibbereen stations, along with the incident control unit from Ballincollig.

In that case, firefighters were able to protect a house, shed and a large area of forestry from the advancing fire. At its peak, the fire stretched across a distance of over 4km.

Wildfires have been burning all across Ireland in recent days, with the Air Corps enlisted to help with fires in the Ox Mountains at the weekend.

More than 1,000l litres of water was dropped on the fire from a helicopter using what’s known as a Bambi Bucket to help Coillte and fire crews in the fight to contain the flames.

Meanwhile, sparks from a gorse fire in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, set off a fire that burned a house to the ground.

The Brennan family home was lost to the flames over the weekend.

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