Knowledge for Wildfire
Improving management of UK wildfire through knowledge exchange

The project finished in March 2017, but project staff endeavour to keep the site as up to date as possible on a voluntary basis.

What are wildfires?

A wildfire is any unplanned and uncontrolled vegetation fire which may require suppression. Most wildfires in the UK are started by humans, and occur on moorlands, heaths, grassland, woodland and agricultural land. We can help to prevent damaging fires by managing people (ignition sources) and vegetation (fuel).

Not all fire is damaging – controlled fire is a traditional management tool in fire-tolerant ecosystems. Zero tolerance to all fire can create larger fires. Fire ecology recognises the complex interactions between fire, ecosystems and people.

Why are wildfires important?

Wildfire was included for the first time in the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies 2013 (section 2.3, p8).
It is identified as a key risk in Defra’s (2012) UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA). The likelihood of wildfires occurring may increase between 10% and 50% by the 2080s with projected warmer, drier spring and summer conditions.
Wildfire is cross-sector risk; CCRA identifies it as a major risk for biodiversity (BD 12) (Brown et al., 2012), but it is also cited in the forestry (Moffat et al., 2012), transport and water sector reports.
More frequent severe vegetation fires would lead to significant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services such as carbon storage for ecosystems like peatland and heathland, which are particularly sensitive to fire.
Over 118,000 ‘grassland’ fires were recorded by Fire and Rescue Services in Great Britain in the financial years 2010/11 and 2011/12.
They are strongly weather-related so are challenging to plan for; on average there were 374 a day in the dry April of 2011 compared to 30 a day in January 2012. [Fire Statistics Great Britain, 2011-12].
UK-wide, in the dry April and May of 2011, it is estimated that there were 44 of over 40 hectares in size, using satellite-derived data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) Rapid Damage Assessment (Joint Research Centre, 2012, Table 38, p87)
Response costs alone are estimated at £55 million a year, and up to £1 million for a big moorland fire.

Wildfire facts and figures

Severe wildfire is on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies:

(Cabinet Office 2013, 2015 and 2017). Moorland and forest fire have been included since the Register began in 2008 (Gazzard et. al., 2016)
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Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) in England attended almost 260,000 fires in eight years:

In the eight financial years from 2009/10 to 2017/18, Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) in England attended an average of 32,000 wildfireincidents a year, in total burning about 37,000 hectares and lasting just over 300,000 hours (Forestry Commission, 2019).
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Wildfires usually outnumber dwelling fires in spring and summer:

In the eight financial years between April 2010 and March 2018, Fire Services in England attended on average three wildfires a day in April and July (156 and 142 /day) compared to two dwelling fires a day (92 and 86 /day). (Home Office, 2018). Fire Services in England attended an average of 260 wildfires a day in the dry April of 2011 compared to only 20 a day in December 2011 (Home Office, 2018).
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Wildfires occur mainly in spring with a second smaller peak in summer:

In Spring, dead vegetation provides dry fine fuels. There are usually fewer fires in June when new green vegetation contains more moisture. A second peak can occur in summer as vegetation and soils dry out.
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Wildfires are strongly weather-related so figures fluctuate greatly from year to year:

In dry years like 2011/12, there were almost 50,000 wildfires, burning 14,000 hectares and lasting 60,000 hours. In wet years like 2016/17, figures drop to around 21,000 incidents, 2,200 hectares and 25,000 hours duration. This variability in number of incidents, timing and impact makes wildfires challenging to manage. The issue goes off the radar in wet years, but fuel (vegetation) continues to grow.
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Impact depends more on location than size:

Most UK wildfires are small (under 1 hectare) and occur in built up areas and gardens (Forestry Commission, 2019). But even small fires next to communities in the rural-urban interface can close roads and schools, and threaten homes, infrastructure and health; for example, the Swinley Forest fire on the Berkshire-Hampshire border in May 2011.
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The largest fires are in natural or semi-natural vegetation:

Most (70%) of the land burned is arable, improved grassland, semi-natural grassland, or mountain, heath and bog (e.g. 2018 Saddleworth Moor and Winter Hill fires). Fires which burn deep into peat soils can damage ecosystems and the services they provide, requiring costly restoration.
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In dry years, UK wildfires can be seen from space:

In the dry April and May of 2011, satellite-derived data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) Rapid Damage Assessment detected an estimated 44 wildfires of over 40 hectares in size across the UK (Joint Research Centre, 2012, Table 38, p87).
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Climate change will increase the likelihood of wildfires:

The likelihood of wildfires occurring may increase between 10% and 50% by the 2080s with projected warmer, drier spring and summer conditions (Defra 2012) UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA). More frequent severe vegetation fires would lead to significant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services such as carbon storage for ecosystems like peatland and heathland, which are particularly sensitive to fire.
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Wildfire is cross-sector risk:

CCRA identified wildfire as a major risk for biodiversity (BD 12) (Brown et al., 2012), and also for forestry (Moffat et al., 2012), transport and water. Find out more about wildfire as cross-cutting issue .
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Fire Service response costs alone have been are estimated at £55 million a year:

Forestry Commission analysis of Fire Service Incident Recording System data on duration of call out and number of vehicles estimated response costs of £55 million per annum (Gazzard et.al. 2016). Equivalent costs can be up to £1 million for a single big moorland fire (FIRES seminar four, 2009).
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