Wildfires are an increasingly prominent feature on newsfeeds. Recent years have highlighted their devastating impact around the world, with lives lost, houses destroyed, and habitats burned. The UK is not immune – wildfires occur here, including on grass, heath and moorlands. While such wildfires in the UK tend not to present the same risk to human life and dwellings, they can have serious impacts on habitats and the carbon stored in peat soils.
The RSPB’s estate is not spared either. We’ve seen large wildfires, for example, in the Peak District (2018) and Scottish Highlands (Strath Halladale 2019 and Cannich 2023), in the North of Scotland, which started outside of our sites but then spread onto them, requiring considerable effort from firefighters, neighbours, and reserve staff to extinguish.
These incidents mean that we are acutely aware of the risks associated with wildfires and take seriously the threat of fire to people, property, and the species and habitats we seek to protect. As the 2022 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment and 2023 National Adaptation Programme have highlighted, the incidence of wildfire is predicted to increase. All of us who manage land need to collectively reduce the risk of wildfire and be ready to react when a fire occurs.
Ahead of a conference on wildfire in Aberdeen next week, this blog looks at how to reduce the risk of wildfire through engagement, policy and land management.
Causes of wildfire
Most UK wildfires are started inadvertently by people. Whether its campfires or barbecues left unattended, glass bottles that act like a magnifying glass or discarded cigarettes, it is frequently careless behaviour that leads to a wildfire (although arson also occurs).
Generally, public awareness of wildfire risk is poor, meaning there is a need for better education and communication, particularly during high-risk periods. This could include targeted news/weather bulletins and signage on the routes to popular areas and at car parks, picnic areas, camp sites, on trails and on nature reserves. Dedicated fire rangers also have an important role.
Our nature reserves colleagues are raising awareness to reduce the risk of wildfires starting, and work with Fire & Rescue Services and other land managers to ensure an effective response should a fire start.
In some places, though, regulation may also be required. The Cairngorms National Park Authority is, for example, developing a seasonal fire management byelaw making it an offence to light a fire or barbecue in the park at certain times. We are supportive of such regulatory approaches where necessary.
Although many fires are started accidentally by members of the public, some are also started deliberately — primarily to manage vegetation for grouse shooting and livestock. While most are extinguished successfully, some get out of control and become wildfires (estimates suggest 15-60% of managed fires can become wildfires in the uplands). Consequently, in the context of the increasing wildfire risk, recent legislation in Scotland is introducing stronger regulation of prescribed burning. Those undertaking ‘muirburn’ will have to be trained and will only be able to burn under licence from NatureScot for specific purposes and in specific places. This strengthening of the regulation is reasonable and welcome.
We think there is a case for stronger regulation everywhere in the UK and hope to see this in England too, where recent changes in legislation have failed to stop burning on sensitive peatlands, with over 30% of fires reported to the RSPB in the last three burning seasons on peat greater than 40cm deep.
Burning on Mid Hope Moors, Peak District, by Tim Melling.
Building resilience to wildfire
Another way that we can reduce the wildfire risk, and improve resistance and resilience to wildfire, is through land management.
We must first recognise that the landscapes we see across much of our uplands are the result of centuries of exploitation for farming and sport. Deforestation, drainage, grazing and burning have created largely treeless, grass and heather dominated landscapes, far removed from their natural state and deliberately held in this ecological stasis. In this way we have created a landscape that is ecologically impoverished, and which has a high wildfire risk.
Traditional sporting and farming land management interests argue that we should use prescribed burning to reduce the fuel load (the amount of vegetation available to a fire, should one occur) and therefore the impact of wildfire. In effect, the interests that have long used fire to manage vegetation for grouse and livestock are now promoting this same management as a tool to reduce wildfire risk, i.e. the status quo is the best solution to the problems we face.
We are sceptical about this way forward.
Why? Firstly, while appearing to be common sense, this fuel load argument is a simplistic take on the issue, because prescribed burning can have other impacts on moorland. Burning can lower the water table on peatlands (drying the soil-vegetation interface) and favours cover of plants such as fire-adapted heather. These effects, plus the risk of prescribed burns escaping (becoming wildfires), mean that there are unanswered questions around whether prescribed burning increases or decreases wildfire risk, an issue acknowledged by fire scientists.
Secondly, we think that the fuel load argument is only part of the picture. Yes, wildfire is an important issue that must be addressed, but so too are the nature and climate crises. The proposed solution to one problem (prescribed burning to reduce wildfire risk), must not perpetuate another problem—the nature crisis. We must find a way forward that addresses both issues at the same time.
We believe the evidence suggests that we can improve a landscape’s resilience to wildfire through habitat restoration.
We know that some habitats are much more resistant to wildfire than others. For example, broadleaved woodland appears to have relatively low flammability and high resistance to fire, and blanket bog and wet heath are more resilient to wildfire than dry heath. We also know that healthy peatlands are more resilient to occasional, low severity wildfires. So, based on current evidence, we believe a landscape will be more resistant and resilient to wildfire if it is in better condition than the landscapes we see today. Consequently, our focus is more on habitat restoration, as this would be a route to reduce wildfire risk, improve biodiversity and tackle climate change at the same time.
We want to see extensive peatland restoration and rewetting, to raise water tables and shift the vegetation to a more fire-resilient state, and we want to see more native woodland, creating more diverse landscapes. These changes in land use can enhance the resistance and resilience of landscapes to fire without simply defaulting to traditional practices such as burning, and would help tackle the climate and nature crises at the same time.
Discussions on the way forward
The increasing threat of wildfire requires discussion among everyone with a stake in this issue. The upcoming conference on wildfire provides one such opportunity for discussion on building resilience into the UK countryside. The programme however appears to be dominated by content on prescribed burning and its potential role in reducing wildfire risk. Scarcely any space has apparently been afforded to the role of habitat restoration. We fear that without wider ideas being discussed, a landowner, policymaker or member of the Fire and Rescue Services could be forgiven for thinking that prescribed burning is the only way forward. We hope there will be space for more forward-thinking dialogue on how to manage wildfire risks in the UK.
In the end, despite the differences of opinion, we are all in the same boat. The urgent challenge we face is how we implement action to stop fires starting, prepare to suppress fires that occur and ensure that habitats, especially wetlands, are in a healthy state and resilient to fire where it occurs, all at the same time as trying to reverse biodiversity decline.
Main Image: regrowth following Corrimony wildfire by Mark Hamblin.