The government will be asked to provide more resources, potentially including air support, to tackle a huge moorland blaze in Lancashire, as firefighters struggle to contain existing wildfires across the region.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he would be asking the home secretary, Sajid Javid, to “take a closer interest” in the huge fires that ignited eight days ago.

The request for more support came as it emerged an RAF helicopter had been deployed to tackle the sprawling wildfire on Saddleworth Moor last week, but it could not be used because it was not equipped to put out the flames.

The Home Office minister Nick Hurd confirmed the military helicopter had been requested and deployed but not used. He said military personnel would assist firefighters until at least Friday after extending their initial period of support.

Up to 100 firefighters from across England were tackling a blaze on Winter Hill near Bolton on Monday, while 30 miles away, fire crews and soldiers were still battling the flames on Saddleworth Moor.



Speaking after visiting firefighters at Winter Hill, Burnham said: “Firefighters have been doing a brilliant job all weekend, but one of the things I take away from this visit is I think they need more support, possibly air support.

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“Later today I’ll be seeking a phone call with the home secretary to relay what I’ve seen and to ask the government to take a closer interest in what is happening on the ground here.”

On Saddleworth, where a 7 sq mile fire has been raging for more than a week, soldiers from the 4th Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland were called in to help tackle areas difficult to reach on foot.

The Labour MP Jonathan Reynolds, whose Stalybridge and Hyde constituency includes one of the wildfire’s worst-affected areas, said he was surprised the government did not call an emergency Cobra meeting at the weekend despite a major incident being declared on Winter Hill. Two moorland fires combined there to threaten a key telecommunications mast that provides TV and radio signals to 7m homes.

Reynolds said ministers would “need to look seriously at our capacity to deal with these kinds of fires in future, including military capacity we might have lost in recent years”.

Hurd said the government was “fully engaged” with the emergency response, adding: “We will be providing all the support and all the resources that this effort will require, because it looks like it will be continuing for some time longer.”

An investigation into the cause of the Saddleworth blaze began on Monday. The effort of extinguishing the fire has been hampered by the blistering heat, uneven terrain and a breeze that can quickly reignite cooling embers.

Sarah Keaveny, the communications officer at the incident command centre in Stalybridge, said: “We are still at the emergency stage of the incident. We are still fighting the fire and only today we have started to get a team of investigators in to start looking at that aspect of it – but it will take a while to get there.”

“The fire is contained and they are making slow progress, but it is still requiring a significant number of resources. It is just the heat, it is not on our side at all.”

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Firefighters at the operation’s headquarters in Stalybridge fire station said more fires may be hidden in the hillsides, where crews on the moorland may be unable to see them.

But Keaveny said: “As far as we know of, the five sectors of the fire we are fighting are where the fires started. These are the ones that we are managing and there are no others as far as we know.”

The assistant county fire officer, Dave Keelan, said: “The temperature is one of the most challenging aspects for firefighters at the moment – working in fire kit with the sun beating down is really difficult and we are rotating them as much as we can.

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“We don’t know the cause of the Tameside incident yet. We have a team of fire investigators doing some work on that, but I would like to urge the public to be really careful with discarded cigarettes and glass bottles.”

Greater Manchester fire and rescue service issued a plea for sun cream, insect repellent, baseball caps and pairs of thick and thin socks for their crew on the moorland on Sunday night.

By midday on Monday, Stalybridge fire station was filled with hundreds of bottles of water, socks and sun cream as local businesses and residents answered the appeal. The fire service said: “The people of Greater Manchester have been a huge source of strength with your cooperation, patience, generous donations and positive messages.”