IT'S NOT WILD.
Most UK wildfires are caused by people. They're preventable.

Every year, around 30,000 wildfires are attended by fire and rescue services across England. In recent years, the UK has seen record areas of land burn, with more than 47,000 hectares destroyed in 2025 alone. The economic cost of these fires has been estimated at around £460 million in a single year.

But the real cost cannot be measured in pounds.

Wildfires destroy wildlife and habitats, devastate ancient peatlands that have taken centuries to form, release huge amounts of stored carbon, damage air quality, threaten homes and businesses, and put firefighters and local communities at risk. Some landscapes will take decades, or even centuries, to recover.

Following repeated wildfires across Saddleworth and the Peak District, including at Dove Stone Reservoir, many local people are asking why we continue to accept these devastating events as inevitable.

They are not.

Despite the name, most are not truly "wild". Around 90% of European wildfires are caused by human activity, of these around 60% are believed to be accidental, meaning many of these devastating fires could be prevented.

Climate change is creating hotter, drier conditions, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfire risk. Unless we adapt, the devastating fires we've seen in recent years risk becoming the new normal.

The UK has invested heavily in improving how we respond to wildfires, and our emergency services do an incredible job. But prevention has not kept pace.

Evidence presented to Parliament, alongside recommendations from the National Fire Chiefs Council, Natural England and conservation organisations, highlights significant gaps in our national approach. Responsibility is spread across multiple organisations, there is no nationally adopted definition of a wildfire, incidents are not consistently recorded or investigated, and opportunities to learn from them are being missed.

At present, there is no single national definition of a wildfire. Incidents are recorded differently across organisations and many are logged simply as outdoor fires, making it difficult to compare data, understand trends, investigate causes or develop effective national policy.

We cannot effectively reduce a problem that we do not consistently define, measure or understand.

Preventing wildfires requires coordinated action across Government, fire and rescue services, local authorities, land managers and environmental organisations.

We are calling on the UK Government to introduce a National Wildfire Prevention and Resilience Framework that will:

1. Put prevention on an equal footing with emergency response
   Recognise that preventing wildfires is just as important as responding to them and establish clear national leadership across Government. The UK Government must improve joint-working across different departments to ensure that there is aligned strategic decision and policy-making on the prevention and management of wildfire risks across the UK.
2. Strengthen accountability
   Ensure those responsible for reckless or deliberate human-caused wildfires face appropriate investigation, enforcement and meaningful consequences that reflect the true cost of the damage caused.
   
3. Strengthen national wildfire capability
   Ensure national wildfire expertise, coordination, and specialist resources are properly funded and regularly reviewed, so fire and rescue services have the capacity, knowledge, and support needed to prepare for, prevent, and respond to the growing wildfire risk.
4. Improve public education
   Deliver a sustained national awareness campaign to help people understand how everyday actions can start devastating fires and how to reduce the risk.
5. Reduce accidental human-caused wildfires
   Implement evidence-based measures that reduce the likelihood of accidental wildfires during periods of heightened risk, including improved public information, temporary risk-based restrictions where appropriate, and practical steps to minimise ignition sources.
6. Improve understanding
   Adopt a nationally agreed definition of a wildfire and improve the recording, monitoring and publication of wildfire numbers, causes, impacts and economic costs.
7. Strengthen investigations
   Ensure wildfire causes are investigated consistently so lessons can be learned, prevention improved and, where appropriate, those responsible held accountable.
8. Build more resilient landscapes
   Invest in woodland management, peatland restoration and habitat recovery that reduce wildfire risk while supporting biodiversity, carbon storage and climate resilience.
9. Embed wildfire resilience in national policy
   Ensure major environmental strategies, such as the England Trees Action Plan, place greater emphasis on wildfire prevention and landscape resilience, recognising that protecting existing woods, peatlands and habitats is just as important as creating new ones.

This isn't about one wildfire.

It's about preventing the next one.

Every year we lose wildlife, habitats, peatlands, clean air and hundreds of millions of pounds to fires that are too often preventable. We cannot continue to accept this as the new normal.

We've become good at responding to wildfires.

Now we must become just as good at preventing them.

Evidence:
- House of Lords Library – Wildfires: reducing the risks and mitigating the effects
- National Fire Chiefs Council – Wildfires Position Statement
- Natural England – Wildfires: Nature's role in resisting the spark
- Woodland Trust – How wildfires affect our woods