Fire Cannot Be Removed From the Uplands, Only Managed

Quick summary

• Under 4°C warming, over half of UK summer days could reach very high fire danger by the 2060s.

• Peatland fires matter most: they release centuries-old carbon that vegetation regrowth cannot recover.

• Saddleworth Moor 2018 burned 18km², exposed 4.5 million people to harmful smoke; £21.1 million mortality cost.

• Fuel is the only manageable fire ingredient — cutting, grazing and planned burning are vital tools.

Under a 4°C warming scenario, more than half of UK summer days could carry "very high" fire danger by the 2060s, up from a 1981–2010 average of around 9%.

That projection, from an expert report prepared for the UK Government's third Climate Change Risk Assessment, is the most serious among a set of findings that together carry a direct message for upland land managers: the conditions that produce damaging wildfires are becoming more common, and fuel is the one part of that problem you can control.

The report gives two figures for future summer fire danger. Under 2°C of warming, around 27% of summer days could reach very high fire danger; under 4°C, around 55%.

 Why Peatland Fires Are the Ones That Count

Most UK wildfires burn surface vegetation and, over a full fire cycle, release little or no net carbon, because the vegetation grows back. Peatland fires are different. When fire dries and burns into deep peat, it releases carbon laid down over centuries and not recoverable on any useful timescale.

The 2018 Saddleworth Moor fire is the report's central case. It burned around 18 square kilometres of upland supplying Greater Manchester's water, with peat consumed to an average depth of 6cm in the worst-hit areas.

The report puts the release at roughly 36,720 tonnes of carbon. A separate peer-reviewed study (Graham et al., 2021) found 4.5 million people were exposed to smoke above World Health Organisation guideline levels, linked the pollution to around four excess deaths, and put the mortality cost at £21.1 million.

Fuel Is the Variable You Control

Of the three things a fire needs — heat, oxygen and fuel — fuel is the only one open to management on the ground. The report makes this the pivot of its adaptation case. As fire weather worsens, keeping fuel loads down on fire-prone ground becomes the primary lever land managers hold.

On managed burning, the report sets out the working land manager's position directly: burning is used to reduce fuel load and maintain the heather mosaic, and land managers argue this lowers the risk of intense wildfire.

It also records that heather in fire-managed landscapes appears to be becoming fire-adapted, germinating and regrowing faster after fire — a trait that may help these habitats persist as fire becomes more frequent.

Alongside this, the report calls for more UK-specific research on controlled burning. Its firmest conclusion is a rejection of blunt policy: treating fire as a single thing to be used or banned in broad terms, it argues, needs more nuance.

The report is unambiguous about tactical burning, where fire is used during an incident to remove fuel ahead of the main fire. It describes this as a proven tool, deployed to good effect at the 2020 Wareham Forest fire, and notes that at least five UK fire services now use it routinely.

It also identifies a constraint working against land managers: the legal burning season is short and frequently coincides with weather too wet to burn, leaving fuel uncleared going into higher-risk months. The National Fire Chiefs Council, the report records, would support greater flexibility where dangerous fuel loads are identified outside the season.

What This Means on the Ground

Rotational burning is now heavily restricted on deep peat in protected areas in England. But the report's own findings argue against a blanket ban: it says optimal burn rotations differ north to south (roughly 30–50 years in the north, as short as 8–10 years in some southern sites) to minimise carbon emissions, which points to refinement by location rather than removal.

Fire has shaped these landscapes for centuries and the climate is making unplanned fire more likely, not less. Managing fuel — by cutting, grazing and well-planned burning — is how we keep the fires under control.