FIRE fighters battled for around five hours to control a ferocious gorse fire at Sheepstor on Sunday afternoon.

Five crews were originally alerted at around 2pm, but a further three appliances were later called to help tackle the blaze which covered an area of six square kilometres.

It brought the total number of fire fighters involved to between 40 and 50.

A police helicopter was scrambled to fly crews to and from the fire, which was extinguished by about 8.30pm.