England's Hottest Day
Introduction
The photograph on this page of England's Hottest Day by Peter Trimming as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
England's Hottest Day
Image: © Peter Trimming Taken: 19 Jul 2022
On the hottest day on record, eight fire engines (six at Oaks Road) and crews had to brave 100+ degree temperatures whilst tackling a major fire on Shirley Hills (Addington Hills). Heathland areas are dominated by heather and gorse, with some bilberry and goldenrod. Drier spots are indicated by the occurrence of bell heather. Burrowing bees and wasps occur in the bare patches of soil and the bushy heathers and acid-loving grasses provide home to a wide range of insects, spiders and other invertebrates, each well adapted to the warm, dry conditions at ground level. In open areas, common lizards and slow-worms thrive. It is these areas which were destroyed by the fire, but most of the woodland areas remained intact. I arrived about an hour and a half after the first alarm was raised. By this time, the fires had been extinguished and fire crews were damping down. Crews remained on site in case of any flare-ups.
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Image Location
Latitude
51.364344
Longitude
-0.062514