The firefighting operation at the Mourne Mountains in Co Down is being scaled back after three days of battling moor and gorse fires.
The major incident status was de-escalated at about lunchtime on Sunday and firefighters moved to working on extinguishing hotspots.
Heather McLachlan, the National Trust’s regional director for Northern Ireland, described a very sad day as she surveyed the damage to the landscape from the fire.
“A lot of our land has been impacted by the fire, from Thomas Mountain through to Millstone Mountain over to Donard,” she said.
“It’s a bit of a lunar landscape and still some of the peat bog is smouldering.
“A very sad day for all of us and we’re going to have quite a lot of work to do to look at what the restoration might look like for us. We’re going to work with colleagues across the National Trust who have experienced these things before and make sure that we get their expertise and wisdom in how we can help this site move forward.”
The blaze in the Slieve Donard area started in the early hours of Friday.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident on Saturday.
There is no indication yet of how it started.
