Wildfires: Reducing the risks and mitigating the effects

Approximate read time: 15 minutes

The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate on 12 June 2025:

The Earl of Caithness (Conservative) to ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to (1) reduce the risk, and (2) mitigate the effects, of wildfires.

1. What are wildfires?

Wildfires are a natural phenomenon and an essential process in some ecosystems. However, around the world climate change, demographic changes and shifts in land use are altering their frequency and severity.^[1]

In the UK, natural wildfires, for example those sparked following lightning strikes, are rare and most wildfires are the result of human action.^[2] The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), which represents fire and rescue services (FRS) across the UK (44 in England, three in Wales and one each in Scotland and Northern Ireland), notes that most wildfires nationally originate from human activity such as:^[3]

• littering (from improper disposal of a cigarette to dropping litter such as reflective items and glass bottles that then start a fire)
• unattended fires (campfires, bonfires and barbecues left unattended or not fully extinguished)
• deliberate fire-setting
• controlled burning used to manage land that then gets out of control

There is no single definition of what constitutes a wildfire in the UK, with different definitions used by government agencies, the media and FRS.^[4] The UK government used to define a wildfire as any “unplanned and uncontrolled fire(s) in the natural environment”, but now defines the term to mean an “uncontrolled fire that burns vegetation, such as grass, heather, woodland, crops and scrubland”.^[5]

The NFCC maintains that not all outdoor fires are wildfires. Instead, it defines a wildfire as “any uncontrolled vegetation fire which requires a decision, or action, regarding suppression”.^[6] In addition, the NFCC specifies that a wildfire will meet one or more of the following criteria:

• involves a geographical area of at least one hectare (10,000 square metres)
• has a sustained flame length of more than 1.5 metres
• requires a committed resource of at least four FRS appliances/resources
• requires resources to be committed for at least six hours
• presents a serious threat to life, environment, property and infrastructure

2. How many wildfires have been recorded in recent years?

Wildfire incidents are not consistently recorded across the UK.^[7] For example, wildfires are not recorded as a specific incident type in official fire and rescue incident statistics.^[8] Instead, they can be recorded as either ‘primary outdoor fires’ (those involving either a fatality, casualty or rescue, or attended by five or more pumping appliances) or ‘secondary fires’ (defined as generally small outdoor fires not involving people or property, for example those in gardens).^[9] The NFCC has observed this makes tracking trends difficult, an issue “exacerbated by different definitions of wildfires being used in the devolved administrations, in the media, and by FRS”.^[10]

Wildfires peak in spring and summer in the UK due to drier conditions and the wider availability of fuel during these seasons, although the incidence of wildfires varies year-on-year depending on conditions.^[11]

The Forestry Commission has reported on wildfires in England between 2009/10 and 2020/21 inclusive, with the data illustrating this year-on-year variation. For example, the commission noted just over 47,400 wildfire incidents being recorded in 2011/12 (of which 1,413 met the NFCC definition) versus just under 16,000 the following year (of which 525 met the NFCC definition).^[12] In 2020/21, the most recent reporting period in the commission’s release, 26,870 wildfire incidents were recorded, which together burned 6,251 hectares and lasted for 38,305 hours in total. The 1,037 wildfires that met the NFCC definition in the same year accounted for 6,152 of the burnt hectares and lasted for 16,747 hours in total. The highest number of NFCC-definition wildfires between 2009/10 and 2020/21 was recorded in 2018/19 (1,913), with these fires burning 25,748 hectares and lasting for 41,908 hours in total.

The Global Wildfire Information System is a joint initiative of the Group on Earth Observations hosted by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization and EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme. As at late April 2025, the service had recorded more than 80 fires larger than roughly 30 hectares in the UK so far this year.^[13] These had together burned around 29,200 hectares (292 sq km or 113 sq miles), with dry conditions in March and early April helping to create fuel. As at 3 June 2025, the service had increased this estimate to 99 fires that had together burned over 33,000 hectares.^[14] This was the largest burnt area in the UK in any year since 2012, when the service’s monitoring began.

On 11 April 2025 the NFCC issued “urgent public safety advice” as wildfires across the UK passed an earlier record set in 2022.^[15]

3. What risks do wildfires pose?

Fire needs three elements to occur: fuel, oxygen and a source of ignition. This is referred to as the fire triangle. Climate change can increase the chance that each of the elements will be present in an environment, therefore increasing the likelihood of wildfire.^[16] In turn, more frequent and severe wildfires can affect ecosystems (including natural capital, wildlife and livestock), infrastructure and human health.^[17] The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has summarised the impacts arising from wildfires as follows:^[18]

• Biodiversity: Wildfire kills organisms that move too slowly to escape and alters post-fire habitat composition. Changing fire regimes can alter ecosystems by promoting species that better tolerate fire, at the expense of fire-sensitive species.^[19]
• Carbon emissions and climate change: Global wildfires emitted 2.2 petagrams (Pg) of carbon per year (1 petagram equals 1,000,000,000 tonnes) between 1997 and 2016, compared with an average of 30 Pg of carbon per year over the same period for fossil fuels and industry. Wildfires have complex effects on soils, vegetation and the atmosphere which may increase or partially offset the climate impacts of wildfire greenhouse gas emissions.
• Soil and water: Wildfire removes surface vegetation and alters soil properties. This means rainfall reaches watercourses faster in subsequent storms, exacerbating flooding. Eroded sediment enters watercourses, reducing water quality.
• Human health: Wildfires present hazards which may injure or kill emergency responders and members of the public. Exposure to wildfire smoke can cause respiratory and cardiovascular health impacts over great distances. Wildfires can increase the prevalence of mental health conditions in impacted communities.^[20]
• Economic: Wildfires affect economies through capital losses, disruption to economic activity and health effects. Economic losses from Californian wildfires totalled approximately $148.5bn in 2018, equating to 1.5% of California’s GDP.

The likelihood and impact of wildfires vary greatly across landscapes.^[21] The largest wildfires in recent years have tended to occur in upland environments due to the large areas of continuous fuel available to burn in these habitats. Fire suppression is more challenging in upland areas, because reporting can be slower, water supplies are scarcer and there are fewer access points for equipment. However, most wildfires are ignited by accidental or deliberate human action in lowland landscapes in the UK, which are more densely populated than upland areas.

In its most recent adaptation progress report, published on 30 April 2025, the Climate Change Committee said there was “now unequivocal evidence that climate change is making extreme weather in the UK, such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, and wildfire-conducive conditions, more likely and more extreme”.^[22] It highlighted the impact of wildfires that burned throughout the UK three years earlier as an example of a significant UK weather and climate impact in recent years:

The hot and dry conditions in summer 2022 led to an unprecedented number of UK wildfires. These occurred in urban as well as rural areas and posed significant challenges to emergency services responding to fire instances. Air quality was impacted for large numbers of people. On 19 July 2022 (the hottest day on record in the UK) a large wildfire in East London destroyed 16 homes. Several fire and rescue services (14) declared major incidents following a 500% increase in 999 calls. Recent research suggests that climate change could have made wildfire conditions in the UK at least six times more likely.^[23]

The committee added there was “little data on the number of properties at risk of wildfires in England, and no data on building-level measures to help manage wildfire risk”.^[24]

4. What is the UK government’s policy on wildfires?

Responsibility for managing wildfire risk is devolved across the UK, and policies differ between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has held responsibility for FRS in England since 1 April 2025.^[25] The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) holds responsibility for reviewing land management and for the promotion of wildfire mitigation and adaptation planning to land managers.^[26]

Wildfire was first added to the UK’s national risk register in 2013.^[27] In the most recent edition, published in January 2025, the government said FRS were responsible for managing the risk of wildfires in their areas. It set out its position as follows:

Climate change is likely to lead to changes in the weather patterns that affect the UK, with longer drier summers anticipated. This could lead to drier vegetation and more frequent, larger wildfires. Fire and rescue authorities (FRAs) are required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area, such as wildfires, through their integrated risk management plan (IRMP). Based on their IRMPs, FRAs determine how best to respond to identified risks. This includes local decisions on the procurement of appropriate equipment to meet these risks and help deliver for their local communities.

The Home Office is working with partners across government and the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) to understand the changing risk and to improve prevention of and response to wildfires, in addition to publishing a national framework document that outlines the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders in managing wildfire in England. The Home Office also takes an active role in communicating wildfire prevention messages through its Fire Kills campaign. These provide outdoor fire safety messages to communication and community safety teams within fire and rescue services to support local delivery of fire prevention.^[28]

The national framework document was last issued in December 2021.^[29]

In February 2025 the government set out its position on wildfire mitigation in response to a written question on whether it expected a higher incidence of wildfires in the UK in the coming years and what plans it had to mitigate the impact of wildfires on newly established forests and woodland. The government said:

Outdoor fires, especially wildfires, are expected by many academics to increase in frequency in the coming years as a result of climate change.

A coordinated approach is essential to mitigate the impact of climate change on people, property, habitats, livestock, natural capital and wildlife, and to plan the most effective response to incidents.

Landowners and land managers are encouraged by Defra to adopt good quality wildfire management plans and use sustainable land management practices that reduce fuel loads.

The ‘UK forestry standard’ highlights the need for woodland owners to have fire prevention in contingency plans and adaptation for the risk to be assessed in forest management plans. This is supported by the UK Forest Service practice guidance ‘Building wildfire resilience into forest management planning’ for both new woodland creation and existing woodland management.

Each fire and rescue authority is required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfire), through their community risk management plan (CRMP) while having regard to the views of other key local responders.

Fire and rescue services undertake a range of activities alongside local partners, including prevention and educational activities and the Forestry Commission also provides ‘Lantra’ [an awarding body] accredited training to the forestry and land management sector on vegetation fires, with over 1,300 places delivered since 2021.^[30]

In 2024/25 the government funded a national resilience wildfire advisor to “assess what additional wildfire national capabilities might be needed to increase resilience to the wildfire risk and to ensure coordination of approaches across the sector”.^[31] The government has said funding for this position has continued in the current financial year.^[32] It has also said it provides proactive public safety communications on barbecues, cigarettes and open fires and regularly engages with the NFCC to “monitor and review sector led improvements to wildfire response and mitigation”.^[33]

5. Could the government do more?

The NFCC has noted that responding to wildfire incidents is:

[…] not a specifically funded capability and falls into the general FRS duty to extinguish fires. As such, costs associated with the development of capabilities and capacity to fight wildfires is currently drawn from FRS core budgets, which are being cut in real terms. FRS are reliant upon tactical advisors coordinated through NFCC National Resilience, however, national assets and further resources for FRS are limited.^[34]

It has made five key recommendations, arguing the government should:

• keep funding for national roles to support wildfire preparedness and response under review to ensure that national resources are sufficient and the wildfires portfolio is not under-resourced
• establish more consistent collection of quality data at a national level to enable better forecasting of emerging risks, and the predicted scale and impact of wildfires on communities, underpinned by a consistent definition of wildfires that is shared across all government departments and partner agencies
• improve joint working across different departments to ensure that there is aligned strategic decision and policymaking on the prevention and management of wildfire risks across the UK
• place greater emphasis on the importance of land management across relevant government departments, both centrally and within the devolved administrations, as well as statutory agencies and local authorities in order to reduce the number and severity of wildfires resulting from improper land management
• work with the fire sector to ensure that requirements for specialist equipment and capabilities are clearly identified, and that there is appropriate funding available for key national resilience assets

In a January 2025 adaptation progress report, the Forestry Commission said it was “awaiting confirmation of funding to progress the UK fire danger rating system, to develop a wildfire risk map and to analyse post-2021 wildfire statistics”.^[35] It added that a “business case and project plan were developed in 2024 and submitted to Defra and [the] Home Office to use international best practice to improve wildfire investigation training”.

The Climate Change Committee has suggested that data on adaptation measures such as fire stations with wildfire equipment would be a useful future indicator to assess community preparedness for wildfires.^[36] The government has said it is considering the committee’s adaptation progress report and will respond to its recommendations in October 2025.^[37]

6. Read more

• Oral question on ‘Climate change: Wildfire strategy and action plan’, HL Hansard, 8 May 2025, cols 1679–82
• National Emergencies Trust, ‘Wildfires in the UK: Understanding the growing risk’, accessed 3 June 2025
• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, ‘Wildfire risks to UK landscapes’, 15 April 2024; and ‘Climate change and UK wildfire’, 27 June 2019
• House of Lords Library, ‘Current Affairs Digest: Environment (September 2023)’, 11 September 2023

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Cover image by Neil Mark Thomas on Unsplash.