FIREFIGHTERS are set to re-launch mountain bike patrols on Easter Monday in a bid to slash the numbers of heathland arson attacks.

Support staff and off duty Dorset Fire and Rescue Service firefighters will conduct the patrols, which will initially focus on the conurbation’s urban heaths.

Poole’s Canford Heath and Upton Heath will be high on the agenda, as both have suffered devastating arson attacks in recent years.

In June 2011 frightened residents were warned to leave their homes as the largest wildfire to rage in Dorset for decades wrecked havoc on Upton Heath.

At its height, more than 185 firefighters, the police helicopter and 30 fire engines tackled an imposing 30ft wall of smoke and flames.

Nobody was seriously injured but the arson attack destroyed a huge area of protected habitat.

On the latest mountain bike patrols, DFRS community safety education officer Gaynor Mant said: “As the schools’ Easter holidays approach young people are out of school and get bored, lighter evenings encourage more people outside and there is a trend that the number of deliberately set fires on the heathland increases.

“The bike allow us to get out and reach areas we have not been able to before, they also mean we can participate in the heathland patrols in the conurbation area in an effort to reduce deliberate fire setting on the heath.

“Plus they are an excellent way of keeping fit and reducing our carbon footprint.”

A Dorset Fire and Rescue spokesman told the Daily Echo that although patrols will be mainly focussed on urban heathland, they would try to get the bikes out to Purbeck’s heaths.

Earlier this month an area of heath equivalent in size to three football pitches was destroyed at Stoborough Heath, near Wareham.

Although its cause was not determined, arson was not ruled out.