Wildfire destroys 12,500 acres of land on England's Dartmoor

London [UK], May 6 (ANI/ WAM): A wildfire has destroyed about 12,500 acres (50.6 square kilometres) of moorland on Dartmoor in south-west England.

Emergency services received multiple calls alerting them to the blaze on Sunday and firefighters tackled it for almost 24 hours until it was extinguished on Monday.

People were asked to avoid the Merrivale and Okehampton areas while the incident was ongoing, with Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service saying the fire may behave "unpredictably" with the changing weather.

It comes after the United Kingdom saw the warmest start to May on record, with 29.3 degrees Celsius registered on Thursday afternoon in south-west London. (ANI/ WAM)

(The story has come from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by the Tribune Staff.)