Fire Risk

People often focus on just rain when it comes to fire risk but there is much more. Cooler temperatures, less ground heat, morning dew/mists, evening moisture, etc all plays its part. The ground is soaking it up and the grass round by is is gaining a much greener tone already. Not out of the woods, but perhaps an end in sight?

 

depends on the ground; just checked my baked blue clay (much of which was mulched before the heat) and while the mulch layer is damp there is little passed into the baked clay below.

 

The Met Office reports 41.8 mm in Carlisle yesterday - the most reported for the UK.

Down here in mid-Kent it is a case of BBC weather forecasts giveth and the BBC weather forecasts taketh away.

Just over 2 mm so far in the last few days and they seem to have a rolling system that forecasts decent rains that always seem to stay a week or so ahead . . . . . .

Bryan

 

24.2 mm in Stainforth, just north of Settle, in the last 24 hours, and it's still raining.

 

It was pretty much solid torrential rain yesterday morning between Lancaster and Carlisle so assume the WCML got a soaking.

Its 14 degrees in Cumbria today, and it feels bleeding freezing after the last few months (I might even have to bite the bullet and put trousers on in the office!)

 

Something very odd going on in Worcester today. Most of the morning water has been falling from the sky. Very strange. Reminds me of something I used to be familiar with once, many months ago, but I can't recall the word for it.

 

Has this actually been confirmed by VT as 'Pure Steam' anywhere. Don't think it's explicitly stated on the tour page.

Have been keeping my powder dry on booking this until it looked like a good chance of avoiding fire risk issues.

 

We live in Pershore, just seven miles east of Worcester and we've had virtually nothing; all the showers have gone round us. We need a few fronts to come across which is forecast for end of next week.....we shall see.

 

A fair bit in Kidderminster at the moment. Though it has been somewhat patchy this week. On Wednesday and Thursday, the station had thundery downpours but my parents a mile away had nothing.

 

On the outskirts of Evesham we had roughly an hour of substantial rainfall earlier on this evening, coming after an almost biblical thundery downpour yesterday afternoon. More rain and thunderstorms currently forecast for next week, so fingers crossed (!)

 

I watched a band of rain on the weather app head south towards us in North Herts earlier, only for it to break up and disappear except for a few spots of rain. It's very localised at the moment. At work the other evening it was drizzling at one end of the shed, yet 300 yards away in the car park was dry. But I'm off on holiday tomorrow, so it's guaranteed to rain!

 

Last week of the school holidays, the bank holiday weekend and a test match...
And yes the forecast is heavy rain the second half of the week.
But let's see if actually happens...

 

On the Severn Valley, the driver experience days on 11th have gone.

I can't see how the steam gala can go ahead a few days later. So I think I'll make other plans.

 

We fully plan for the gala to go ahead as normal. The Driver Experience has been cancelled for other reasons.

We have got several lines of mitigation in place to assist with the Gala Operations and we are planning for a full event.

A planned return to steam operations is pencilled in for 2nd September.

The ultimate thing is it will rain. Last year we had exaclty the same panic. 20th August 2025 writing out SVR Gala diagrams with “Red Fire Risk, please take extra precautions”, and then it rained for 15 days building up to and including the gala. And as I said the other day rain isn’t the only stepping stone - Cloud matters a lot, as does lower temperatures. Morning dew, evening moisture. It all builds up. Throw in some added mitigations and events can run.

 

I see. Not what the email says. Somebody is being a bit economical with the truth.

 

Fire risk is one of the reasons but there are others too. Understandably protecting the gala is quite crucial as it’s a huge income stream. So in response to you not seeing how the gala can go ahead, it will go ahead.