Greenpeace defends Burnham wildfire mural as locals scrape it off
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- Greenpeace painted a 1,120-square-metre mural on a scorched mountainside in Capelulo, Conwy, showing Andy Burnham holding an oil drum with the words "Our house is on fire Andy" as part of an anti-oil and drilling campaign.
- The mural was laid on land where July wildfires — declared a major incident by North Wales Fire and Rescue Service — burned about 200 acres and forced the evacuation of 36 homes, with the blaze coming within yards of properties.
- Allie Evans, a 53-year-old hairdresser who had been among those evacuated, and Rhos-on-Sea resident Dean Ward hiked up the mountain and scraped the paint off with rakes, citing fears that sightseers would further trample the fragile hillside.
- Evans described the work as "so disrespectful" and "an intrusion into local grief," noting that some paint was "baked" onto rock and soil so stripes remain visible at the site.
- Ward wrote to Greenpeace online saying he took "great pleasure" in removing the work and questioning how a group preaching "leave no trace" could stain rock and soil.
- Janet Finch-Saunders, Senedd member for Bangor Conwy Môn, accused Greenpeace of "environmental vandalism," saying burnt hillsides should not be used "as a canvas for political protest."
- Areeba Hamid, Greenpeace UK co-executive director, defended the piece as temporary by design and made with a water-based paint used on sports turf, applied only to rock and ash left after the fire burned away all living vegetation.
Why it matters: The standoff crystallises a growing dilemma for climate activists: the more visceral the chosen canvas — a blackened Welsh hillside still raw for evacuated residents — the louder the protest message, but the harder the collision with the very communities the campaign claims to defend. For Greenpeace, defending water-based paint on already-dead rock will not silence the charge that they instrumentalised local trauma; for residents, scraping paint off stone bought a partial win at best, with baked-on stripes still visible.
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