Sandringham estate put a fire pit on its Instagram page on Wednesday even as local guidance said people should avoid all types of fire because the wildfire risk was EXTREMELY HIGH. The post showed marshmallows grilling over the flames.
The timing matters because officials had already told people in the area to stay away from disposable barbecues, campfires, cigarettes, vapes, glass bottles and tins, and not to park on dry grass. The warning came after the hottest June on record left the ground tinder-dry.
Wild Ken nature reserve had warned that the risk was “extremely high,” and Wild Ken Hill said the danger remained extreme across the country with temperatures climbing again. In that same area, more than 80 acres were affected by the 2022 fire, and Wild Ken Hill recalled how a blaze started on Tuesday 19th July 2022 at around 11:30 am close to Snettisham Beach after a hot south-easterly wind pushed it through the land.
The estate later urged visitors to “dispose of cigarettes responsibly” and “bring a picnic, not a BBQ,” but the fire pit video still sat awkwardly beside the advice. The estate’s own promotion was trying to draw people in for summer activities, while the fire warning was trying to keep them from doing the very thing the video celebrated.
That friction is sharper because Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is one of only a few hundred people living on the Sandringham estate, and he was moved earlier this year from Royal Lodge in Windsor to Marsh Farm in Wolferton. For now, the unanswered question is simple: why the estate chose to publish a fire pit video while it was telling everyone else to treat fire as off limits.
