A Wildfire Burns the Fuel You Leave for It - What This Week's Moorland Blazes Have in Common
- Rob Beeson
- 22 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Quick summary
Two major incidents have been declared on moorland in Derbyshire and North Wales during England's third heatwave.
Natural England warned much of England faced "exceptional" wildfire risk by Thursday 16 July.
Wildfires burn what is there to burn: more standing fuel means more consumed, more severely.
Fuel is the only part of the wildfire equation land managers can actually control.
Firefighters have spent this fortnight on the moors. Two major incidents. Crews recalled to a fire they had already left. Nineteen wildfires burning across England and Wales at once. And a warning from Natural England that much of the country would hit the top of the fire severity scale by 16 July.
Every one of these fires needed two things: a spark, and something to burn. We cannot legislate away a heatwave. We cannot stop every dropped cigarette or abandoned barbecue, and almost every wildfire in this country begins with one. But the fuel is different.
The fuel is the one thing on that list that land managers can do something about, and it is the thing that decides whether an ignition stays small or becomes a major incident.
What's burning
Tintwistle Moor, Derbyshire
The fire began on 24 June near Glossop as temperatures hit 34c, and has affected around 260 hectares (642 acres). Crews left on 2 July.
They were called back the following Thursday when the heat returned, and Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident — what area manager Ellie Gillatt called a "significant and complex incident" needing a protracted, multi-agency response.
Conwy Mountain, North Wales
A major incident near Sychnant Pass. North Wales Police have overseen evacuations. Residents of Dwygyfylchi and Penmaenmawr have been told to keep doors and windows shut because of the smoke.
Dovestone and Darwen
A fire above Dovestone Reservoir has burned for three days, sending smoke across Greater Manchester. Another has taken hold above Darwen. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have warned that "any lit cigarettes or barbecues could start a large or significant fire".
Spain
Southern Spain has suffered one of its deadliest wildfires on record — at least 13 people killed in Almería, several believed to be British residents, and around 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) burned. Our sympathies are with all those affected
What wildfires actually do to fuel
When researchers went out and measured five British moorland wildfires from 2011 and 2012, sampling the vegetation before and after, they found that the amount of surface vegetation burnt was a direct function of how much was there beforehand, while severity varied strongly with fire weather and vegetation type.
This is the ordinary physics of combustion, confirmed in the field on British moorland.
And the fuel is piling up. A 22-year study of a Peak District estate found that over 70% of the burnable area went unburnt for the entire study period, with annual burning rates far below the statutory conservation agency's own recommendation, implying high fuel accumulation and increased wildfire risk.
Meanwhile, NatureScot's evidence review confirms that burning heather-dominated habitat immediately reduces above-ground biomass, and that fire intensity in heather is governed by fuel structure, wind speed and fuel moisture.
More fuel, hotter fire. Less fuel, cooler fire. Managing that vegetation determines whether crews can control the fire, or the fire controls them.
Tools used to address the excess fuel issue
Controlled burning. Cool burns, carried out in the burning season under prescribed weather conditions, with crews and equipment on the ground, removing the old, rank vegetation that carries a summer fire. Regulation already requires that a burn must not be left smouldering in the soil for more than 48 hours — precisely because that is what turns a management tool into a hazard.
Cutting. Where the ground will take a machine, flailing removes standing fuel with no smoke at all. But the Heather and Grass Management Code itself acknowledges that machinery access limits where cutting is possible. On steep, wet or broken ground, it simply is not an option — which is why removing burning from the toolkit removes the only tool available in many places.
Used together they create a mosaic: patches of differing vegetation age, broken by firebreaks, giving crews somewhere to make a stand instead of chasing a front across open moor.
Why this matters
Fuel accumulates quietly, year after year, and then one hot week in July it is all released at once — into the air, into the peat, and into the path of the people sent to stop it.
Land managers must be allowed to use the best tools at their disposal to reduce excess fuel loads and help prevent more catastrophic wildfires. At the moment, policy is stopping them, even as parliament is finally asking Defra the right questions.