A large fire broke out behind Clemence Road, which backs on to Beam Parklands, at around 6:30pm on Monday, July 14. It was tackled by more than 120 firefighters.
Council leader Dominic Twomey said the fire would have spread to people’s homes if it was not for fire breaks that maintenance workers had cut into the grass in recent weeks.
He said: “The very fact that our team – our frontline maintenance team – worked incredibly hard over the last months to put in the fire breaks that were acknowledged by the London Fire Brigade and others that stopped these fires spreading to residents’ homes, I think it has to be acknowledged that they are often the unsung heroes.
“It wasn’t by chance – this is planned out months in advance and it’s carried out regularly to ensure that the grass and the fire breaks that are cut into the fields.
“They’re effective. Without it a number of residents would have probably lost their homes and belongings.”
London Fire Brigade borough commander Blake Betts also said the fire breaks had prevented the fire from spreading further.
He told the BBC: “In this instance they’ve worked really effectively to stop the spread or control the spread to one particular area.”
