LAST week in church we gave prayers for our beautiful coast and heathland. It is very ironic that the week will be remembered for a heathland conflagration as destructive as any in recent years.

On driving to Broadstone on Thursday evening to visit a friend and then smelling the toxic smoke, seeing the aerial activity above and hearing the wailing sirens my heart sank as I knew there must have been a major heath fire.

As a heathland lover I dread long dry periods, particularly during vacational periods, that make heathland vulnerable to those who have nothing better to do than destroy it for their own self-centred gratification.

Ignorance and destruction combine in a lethal cocktail! I tried to put it out of my mind but seeing your front page feature and photograph in your Saturday edition made it all so real and tragic – akin to bereavement and losing a close friend.

Less so in recent years since I moved to Ferndown in 2005 but before, I enjoyed participating in regular winter management conservation parties on Upton Heath and appreciating the results of our work with guided walks in the summer to appreciate the special heathland flora and reptiles, the highlight often being evening walks on fine and calm late evenings to hear if not see the migrating Nightjar, who nests on the ground and call from a tree.

Will we ever hear a nightjar ‘churring’ on Upton Heath one summer evening or see the green flash of a male sand lizard or a beautiful, harmless smooth snake under a refuge or basking in the sun?

I feel at this time for the many activists either as individuals or part of bodies such as the Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (ARC) based in Boscombe and the Dorset Wildlife Trust, especially the dedicated wardens on Upton Heath Andy Fale and Nigel Bourn.

My wish for some years given the consequences to wildlife in such destructive fires and the cost in terms of fire, police, ambulance is that we need to invest in tall surveillance towers on certain vulnerable urban heaths.

I have no technical expertise but I would have thought remote controlled cameras at the apex of a tower could cover the range of the heath, particularly at entrance and exit access points.

We have lost far too much already endangered species and the diminishing heathland on which it depends to fire damage. And to those less concerned about wildlife there is surely the issue that one day, if fires continue regularly, a human being will lose their residence close to the heath, or even their life!

ROD CHAPMAN, Amberwood, Ferndown