ON a walk this evening, I went by another large fire- things being piled on and the flames roaring.

We have people all around us locally- maybe on your street and mine- who are fighting for each breath to stay alive.

That’s how it is. On nights like tonight, smoke spreads a long way. Who needs extra stress on their airways?

My kids want a barbecue. Tough. We’re not having one for some time. We can wait.

You’ve done a good lot of gardening, clearing out, building work, or DIY? Great, but leave the fires for now. They will wait.

Compost what you can, put things out of the way as much as you can, leave some of that wood for wildlife- just please don’t have fires you don’t need.

It’s also very dry, (at the time of writing) and we don’t need our emergency services spending their time on fires that didn’t need to happen.

MR T MARSHALL

Library Road, Poole