Government wildfire summit: comment and briefing

“The UK’s hottest summer on record [2]has given rise to one of our worst wildfire seasons ever, as climate change turbo charges fire risk across Britain’s landscape. Climate change is bringing us hotter, drier summers, and this combination of high temperatures and low humidity is what drives the most severe wildfire risk conditions.

"The very high fire danger in 2022, still our worst wildfire season on record, was made at least six times more likely by climate change [3]. And with over 12,000 fire service appliances committed to wildfires this summer, these fires come at a real cost to the fire service’s capacity to tackle other incidents [4].

“Droughts and extreme heat in 2018, 2022, 2025 and now 2026 have given us what would have been unprecedented levels of fire risk. As climate change makes once exceptional heat a frequent occurrence, fire services are likely to need to invest more in specialist equipment. An effective wildfire strategy will require a much broader focus though, including creating wetter, more fire resilient landscapes and a recognition that climate mitigation policies to reduce emissions to net zero provide the only guaranteed way to prevent the severity of fire risk from escalating even further in the years and decades ahead.”