By Henrietta Appleton, Policy Officer (England)
The National Alert over the weekend is welcome in that it acknowledges the threat of wildfire to local communities, businesses and critical infrastructure, not just to environmental assets. But the cynic in me notes that this action was taken when property and the southeast were at risk; the government had failed to act when the rural landscape was burning – and spreading smoke over Manchester, Andy Burnham’s back yard.
But of major concern is that the threat of wildfire to property, the economy, the environment and life has been brought to government's attention countless times over the last 5-10 years and longer if you consider the forecast risk of climate change. Wildfire was first added to the national risk register in 2013 and identified as a climate change risk in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessments (CCRA) in 2012 and the National Adaptation Programme (NAP) in 2013.
The GWCT held a wildfire workshop with the Climate Change Committee in January 2023 after the 2022 wildfire disasters to seek to re-emphasise the actual and forecast risk of wildfire to the UK and ultimately its risk to life by bringing together fire ecologists, practitioners, firefighters and government agencies including those responsible for the environment. This also followed a CCRA expert led report on UK wildfires and their climate challenges which identified the need for fuel management in altering wildfire risk and behaviour and for civil contingencies to combine land management decisions with suppression capabilities.
Climate change is not only leading to more fire supportive weather but also leading to more vegetation becoming vulnerable to fire. This dual impact on our vegetation requires the creation of fire breaks in all vegetation communities through mechanical means (e.g. cutting, forestry firebreaks, ploughing crops, digging down into the peat e.g. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2051542209066871 ), the enhancement of roads and tracks by managing the vegetation alongside them or grazing whilst "for fire-adapted ecosystems [such as UK peatlands and heathlands], reintroducing cultural and prescribed burning can reduce fuel loads and limit extreme fires" ( World Economic Forum White Paper From Wildfire Risk to Resilience: The Investment Case for Action January 2026).
The GWCT workshop, alongside other endeavours by scientists and land managers who have flagged the risk of severe and life-threatening wildfires, sought to embed consideration of the risk into cross-government policy by highlighting the link between fire severity and vegetation type, extent and structure as a fuel source. This will vary by semi-natural habitat and becomes particularly complex at the rural-urban interface when additional materials become potential fuel sources. Such a consideration should apply to the management of existing habitats as well as plans for new developments and critical infrastructure, the restoration of semi-natural habitats in pursuit of carbon sequestration (mainly woodland and peatland), woodland carbon code projects, changing crop types (bioenergy crops) and the creation of green infrastructure.
Evidence of the need to consider the role of different vegetation types and their management (and its design within new developments) in influencing wildfire severity and the importance of defined fire breaks and buffer zones around residential or other infrastructure has been provided by both scientists, who are specialists in the field of wildfire ecology, insurers and practitioners, usually land managers but also firefighters given their experience of trying to suppress the increasingly severe wildfires being experienced in the UK.
The National Alert needs to be followed by an acceptance that whilst a fire cannot occur without an ignition source, it is the availability of fuel (vegetation mainly but also sheds, houses, buildings etc) that turns a flame into a wildfire disaster. Government needs to learn from the experience of existing fire prone countries and manage the fuel load in our emergent landscape. The sad thing is the agri-environment scheme fire belt and fire/fuel break options that Cobra could introduce as emergency measures do not protect the 2.6 million acres of peat with depths of more than 10cms. A great pity considering in 2026 there have been 72 moorland fires of greater than 74 acres burning nearly 60,000 acres in the UK already.
As the World Economic Forum states wildfires are outpacing suppression capabilities and so more needs to be done to address prevention such as fire breaks and fuel load management. Of course, there is no fire without a spark, which the National Alert addressed, but there is no wildfire without the fuel load. As we and others keep on saying action is need NOW; prevarication is costly.