Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service crews deployed specialist equipment on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, to extinguish a large underground wildfire covering 10,000 square meters at the Strawberry Hill Heath nature reserve in Rainworth.
Emergency crews initially responded to the historic Sherwood Forest area on Monday afternoon, June 6, at 4:52 p.
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m. , battling the flames for seven hours overnight before returning to control the smouldering subsurface blaze.
Firefighters from multiple stations, including Ashfield Fire Station and wildfire units from Eastwood and Tuxford, are managing the incident as high temperatures from a third seasonal heatwave impact the region.
Fire Still Burning Underground
Station Manager Rich Booth established that the fire remains active beneath the soil despite appearing to only produce surface smoke.
"We had multiple appliances here and the wildfire unit from Eastwood and Tuxford, they were here for about six, seven hours last night and again we’re back here this morning and we’ve got multiple appliances again so if you could avoid the area for the rest of the day that would be great," said Booth.
The deployment involves a specialized misting lance to penetrate the ground and suppress the subterranean fire, which officials note is particularly difficult to extinguish.
"The problem is it may only look like it’s smouldering at the moment and smoking but the fire is still burning underneath so the specialist wildlife unit are using a specialist misting lance that they can force down into the ground and spray a mist and put the fire out underground," added Booth.
