https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62253581
South Wales Fire Service is seen as leading the way in its approach to wildfires. Its station manager, Craig Hope, is another of the UK's wildfire tactical advisers. His force keeps specialised lightweight kit, off-road vehicles, a controlled burns team and a helicopter on standby. However, 5,500 hectares of the Brecon Beacons National Park have already burned in wildfires this year. "It's horrific, but we have predicted it," he said. "I just don't think anyone would have predicted that it would happen so soon."
He added that years have been spent "making little steps" and that now is the time for "big strides, because the climate is not on our side". "The fires we are seeing now are what they were getting in Spain in the 80s and 90s." He urges authorities to invest more in developing a UK-wide "national plan for wildfire". One solution Mr Hope proposes is that, rather than each force individually spending money on improving its response, there should be funding for a deployable central specialised unit. Mr Hope added: "The solutions are there. They are complex, but we all need to work together. "By doing nothing, we risk losing everything."
The BBC went to the Malvern Hills to see the kind of expertise being developed by rural fire crews working alongside landowners. Duncan Bridges, chief executive for the Malvern Hills Trust, works with the Hereford and Worcester Fire Service to map where the local access points are, and to understand how wind and fire are likely to travel through a landscape. As part of the trust's wildlife management, the keepers also help to reduce the amount of combustible vegetation, by rolling back bracken and allowing livestock to graze the grass.
Mr Bridges says climate change means the prevention of wildfires is going to become "increasingly more critical". "There doesn't seem to be any systematic approach across the whole country when it comes to dealing with landowners and land managers," he says. "When dealing with fire prevention and fire safety, it's more a case of each one doing it their own way."
Defra has included wildfire in its national climate adaptation plan, and the Home Office pointed out a plan for England it had published last December outlined plans for "close co-ordination... to provide an effective response to wildfire incidents." It added: "The government is committed to ensuring fire services have the resources they need to keep us safe, including from wildfires, and, overall, fire and rescue authorities will receive £2.5bn in 2022/23.
