Choking on the Details: Why Focusing on Wood Stoves Misses the UK’s Growing Air Quality Threat

The Right Goal, The Broader Context

As reported in The Guardian, the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan proposes tightening regulations on domestic wood-burning stoves to help reduce fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅). Reducing harmful emissions is clearly a worthwhile aim.

However, while domestic sources play a role in local air pollution, there is a risk that wider and potentially larger contributors to national particulate burdens are not yet fully reflected in the overall strategy. To manage air quality effectively, the UK needs a complete picture of all major pollution sources - especially those that are growing due to climate and land-use pressures.

A Risk of Narrow Focus in National Air Quality Planning

Effective air quality policy depends on recognising all substantial contributors. Without doing so, there is a danger that policy becomes overly focused on familiar or visible emissions sources while emerging risks remain insufficiently understood.

Recent wildfire seasons provide a clear example. The exceptional fires of 2025 highlighted how major wildfire events - though episodic - can generate very large, short-term pollution pulses that rival or exceed many everyday sources.

Wildfire Emissions: A Significant and Growing Factor

Published estimates suggest that the 2025 wildfires released several thousand tonnes of PM₂.₅, representing a marked increase in episodic particulate pollution. These estimates indicate that the total PM₂.₅ released was of a similar order of magnitude to annual emissions from domestic fuel burning and comparable to the scale of emissions associated with UK road transport exhaust in 2023.

Similarly, published assessments indicate that the fires released over one million tonnes of CO₂, broadly comparable to the annual emissions of several hundred thousand cars. These figures underline that in severe years, wildfires can behave like a large, short-term industrial emitter - despite sitting outside conventional emissions control frameworks.

The graph below illustrates one example: the PM₂.₅ concentrations recorded during the 2018 Saddleworth Moor wildfire in comparison with everyday urban levels.

Understanding Fire: Different Types, Different Outcomes

A key point recognised in wildfire science is that not all fire behaves the same way. There is an important distinction between:

• High-intensity, uncontrolled wildfires that release large quantities of PM₂.₅ and CO₂, and

• Low-intensity, professionally managed burns carried out under controlled conditions.

Controlled burning, when appropriately used as part of an integrated land-management plan, can help reduce the build-up of dry vegetation that fuels the most severe and polluting wildfire events.

International research and UK wildfire practitioners recognise this as one tool - among others - that can help lower the likelihood and severity of major wildfires in suitable landscapes.

Restricting all controlled burning does not remove fire from the landscape; it affects when and how intensely fire occurs. In periods of high fuel load and dry conditions, this can increase the risk of high-intensity wildfires, which produce far greater emissions and can spread rapidly.

In particularly severe years, wildfire emissions from burning peatland have been estimated to account for a substantial proportion of the UK’s total wildfire-related particulate emissions - demonstrating the scale of impact when deep peat ignites.

A More Comprehensive Approach to Clean Air

Regulating domestic wood burning may be a useful measure within the wider air-quality framework, but it is only one part of a much larger picture. To safeguard public health, climate goals and upland ecosystems, policy also needs to consider the increasing role that severe wildfires can play in national emissions.

A more holistic approach would include:

• Reflecting wildfire emissions within national air-quality and carbon-accounting frameworks

• Supporting sustainable upland management practices

• Ensuring land managers retain access to evidence-based tools - including controlled burning where appropriate - within integrated wildfire mitigation plans

A joined-up strategy requires close collaboration between government departments, the Fire & Rescue Services, environmental bodies, and those who manage the uplands daily. By working together, the UK can strengthen its resilience, protect its landscapes and carbon stores, and reduce the risk of the severe pollution spikes associated with major wildfires.

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