Rewilding link to record fires: After 1,017 wildfires ALREADY this year, eco-dogma is blamed for turning the country into a tinderbox
INDERDEEP BAINS, COLIN FERNANDEZ
A record year for wildfires was last night blamed on Labour’s environmental policies.
Some 1,017 infernos have ravaged England and Wales this year – already as many as there were in the whole of 2025, the previous worst year.
With temperatures forecast to hit 38C today, campaigners say the Government has ignored warnings that its policies have turned swathes of countryside into tinderboxes.
They say Labour’s rewilding drive, which involves allowing nature to look after itself without human interference, has caused a huge build-up of dry vegetation primed to ignite in heatwaves.
Gamekeepers and farmers traditionally carried out controlled burning of heather and grasses in the cooler months – encouraging new shoots on which grouse and sheep graze.
Last year, Labour extended rules preventing the burning on 1.6million acres of land.
It says the move, targeted at peatlands, would improve air quality and protect environmental and public health.
Jonathan Roberts, of the Country Land and Business Association, said: ‘Last year was the worst on record for wildfires, yet ministers responded by making it harder for land managers to carry out the controlled burning necessary to stop wildfires taking hold in the warmer months.
“Government has in effect banned the single-most important method of preventing wildfires, and we are now living with the consequences. Put simply, they must reverse the policy immediately.’
His concerns are echoed by the Countryside Alliance, which said ministers had made a ‘foolish decision’.
‘Moorland communities are facing increasing challenges, the Government having recently more than trebled the area over which the controlled burning of vegetation is effectively banned in our uplands,’ it said.
‘The Countryside Alliance has repeatedly warned that by ignoring the latest scientific evidence, the Government is significantly increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.’
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While The British Association for Shooting and Conservation’s spokesman, Garry Doolan added: ‘Controlled burning has been an essential tool in the uplands for hundreds of years – for grazing, habitat and wildlife, moorland management and wildfire mitigation.
‘The irony is, as regulation tightens, the risk of large-scale wildfires increases. In the name of protecting peatlands, they may well be being set up to burn … ‘We simply have far, far too much vegetation covering our landscape and until we reverse rewilding, the wildfires will get worse and worse.’
The Daily Mail: continue reading
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Whitehall is turning England into tinderbox
Our wildfire crisis is man-made. Unless the Prime Minister acts decisively there will be fatalities
IAN BOTHAM
How bad is the situation? Satellite analysis shows that six times more land was burnt in the UK over the last decade than in the previous one (151,954 hectares in 2016-2025 against 24,805 in 2006-2015). Do not be fooled by those who say this catastrophe is simply down to climate change. Sure, hot days drive moisture out of plants. But globally wildfires are down by a quarter because humanity has become better at creating firebreaks.
Defra hasn’t. Its response to climate change has been to sharply increase vegetation. Over the last 20 years its cuts in upland cattle and sheep grazing led to a 25% increase in highly flammable grass.
Another genius move has been stopping preventative burns of heather. Why do I care about this? Because during damp winter months these burns safely prune the dead material which is then replaced by younger plants. It is the dead heather which is combustible. And thanks to Defra we now have 74% more of it.
The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation.
The result is disaster after disaster. The massive fires at Saddleworth and Fylingdales started on land where winter burns had been blocked. At Saddleworth five million people inhaled poisonous smoke. By some estimates, 28 died prematurely.
When Downing Street starts asking questions of Defra, jaws will drop. Why did it further restrict winter burns despite the National Fire Chiefs Council warning this risked the lives of “firefighters and the public”? How come it also ignored the pleading of the country’s top wildfire scientists not to go ahead?
Burnham’s team will wonder why Defra allows upland vegetation to grow by one tonne every seven minutes. The truth is that Defra is clueless about the volumes because, despite being in charge, it has never calculated it. I am grateful that the Moorland Association has done the maths.
Nor did Defra do an impact assessment before its latest restrictions on heather management. It knew what the answer would be. In 2007 officials said stopping winter burns would produce “a much-increased risk” of wildfires. Which is exactly what we are getting. Rewilded land going up in smoke.
Other countries have learnt the hard way. Australia and California tried suppressing the prescribed burns that indigenous people had used for tens of thousands of years. By some calculations, dozens died before their governments saw sense. What will it take for ours to wake up?
And why do so few agree with Defra? Last year, an EU Commissioner, the US government and the G7 leaders backed winter burns. Scotland uses thousands of them over its deep peat each year. Defra, zero.
The Scottish government recognises that gamekeepers, trained by decades of winter burns, are critical to bringing wildfires, like the current one in the Cairngorms, under control.
In England, Defra officials say the department is helping “nature recovery”. Yet explain that to the animals which fail to outrun the flames. And why should Defra spend tens of millions on “peatland restoration” when the peat is then destroyed by wildfires? The best joke is that Defra says it is helping to create a “fire resilient landscape”.
Officials bamboozled ministers with a Natural England evidence review which they said justified their approach. A review which they claimed had received “rigorous” peer review. Yet one of the reviewers admitted he could not “pretend to have read it end to end” while another said their “brain could not keep track”.
The department argues that winter burns “damage” the peat. So how come a recent government-funded study by academics at Exeter University stated that winter burns do not “damage” the peat?
And how can Defra argue that winter burns dry out the peat when York University researchers found they make the ground “significantly wetter”? The trimmed plants draw less water out of the ground. So it is rewilding not winter burns which dries the landscape.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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This CANNOT HAPPEN… (Grass Doesn’t COMBUST)
Grass NEEDS 250’C temperatures to spontaneously comust
@CLOWNWORLD YT
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(UKR)
