WILDLIFE at Ferndown Common is thought to be hiding underground in the wake of last week’s devastating heath fire.

Thirteen hectares of ground, the equivalent size of eighteen football pitches, was lost in the blaze, leaving behind scorched and blackened grassland.

Senior Reserve Manager Gary Powell said: “All six species of native reptiles live there, but the problem is that because of the drought, a lot of them would have been underground already.

“Usually we see a lot of dead animals on the ground after a fire, but after this we saw hardly any – some may still be alive underground, but others will have died from the smoke.”

Site managers are waiting for the reptiles to resurface to begin reptile rescue efforts, but they cannot predict when that will be.

Powell explained: “We need to catch the reptiles when they come to the surface – at this time of year, and without any vegetation to hide in, they’re exposed to heat and predators.

“We don’t know how many we’re going to get, but there are still very good bits of habitat that remain after the fire, so we’ll relocate them there.”

Among the native wildlife population are stonechats and nightjars, as well as a number of butterflies and newts.

One inhabitant is the sand lizard, a European Protected Species that is extremely rare due to its loss of natural habitat, which is usually sandy heathland and dunes.

“It’s impossible to say how many there were before the fire,” Powell said, “it’s likely we’re going to struggle to find any number of reptiles because they aren’t particularly mobile, and the snakes are quite slow-moving - they’ll struggle to find shelter after a fire.”

“The bird species are very important too, thankfully they can fly elsewhere but the nightjars do nest on the ground, so they would have been more vulnerable.”