Rural Businesses Provided £6.4 Million of Kit at the Glenmore-Strathnethy Wildfire

Quick summary

• More than 40 rural businesses and organisations assisted or stood by during the 3,300-hectare Glenmore-Strathnethy wildfire.

• Survey returns record 266 person-days, 38 person-nights and equipment with a stated value near £6.4 million.

• Capable operators and machinery were stood down, left waiting or sent home for want of tasking arrangements.

• Much of the kit that fought the fire is bought and maintained by estates for planned muirburn.

The Glenmore-Strathnethy wildfire burned more than 3,300 hectares in the Cairngorms during July and August 2026. A survey of the land-based businesses that helped fight it, published by Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), records more than 40 businesses and organisations contacted, volunteering, authorised to assist or placed on standby.

Their returns log 266 person-days and 38 person-nights, over 250 items of equipment with a combined stated value of nearly £6.4 million, and more than 50 employees and contractors released by their employers. At least 70 were on standby had the fire threatened Tomintoul.

The totals cover both what was offered and what was actually used. The gap between the two is the point. SLE describes its figures as conservative and the real contribution as higher, since several parties were still damping down when the survey closed.

Nobody was ordered into danger: individuals volunteered or agreed to assist, and employers released them from normal duties, absorbing the costs or recording them for possible reimbursement.

Several capable operators travelled to muster points with wildfire equipment and were stood down, left waiting or sent home. SLE's explanation is a mismatch of pace: rural capability became available faster than registration, tasking and communications could absorb it.

How the Fire Behaved

Fire-behaviour evidence came from consultants Firebreak Services Ltd. A danger assessment on 12-13 July, three days before ignition on 15 July, anticipated the behaviour that followed, and a follow-up on 28 July predicted extensive smouldering.

That does not make the fire predictable. Spread was slow for most of the incident. A wind shift to a westerly on Friday 24 July then altered fire behaviour and drove a major increase in growth, the same day the muster was organised.

Observed flame lengths ran generally between one and two metres, with a maximum around three, consistent with a peak satellite-observed intensity of 3,479 kilowatts per metre.

Fuel loading was extremely high across the heather canopy, moss and litter layer and undecomposed organic matter, all available to burn at points during the incident. No crown fires were seen.

Some ground burned up to three times, working down through litter, heather stick and organic matter and eventually into peat. Smouldering around tree roots created a falling-tree hazard.

What Rural Businesses Provided

The equipment returns are dominated by everyday estate kit. They list 45 leafblowers, 36 Argocats and Argo-type vehicles carrying pumps, tanks or fogging units, 17 tractor-based units, 14 Can-Am and 6x6 vehicles, 11 excavators and four bulldozers.

It went into direct firefighting, hot-spot suppression, tactical backburning, firebreak creation, track opening and digging ponds for helicopters.

Wetting agent showed promise. Eighteen tubs of 25 litres went to five organisations, and the contractor who used it most reported significant savings in time and water during mop-up, given adequate water volume, concentration and patrolling resource.

The first bulldozer deployment shows how advance planning helps. It went in on Forestry and Land Scotland ground at Glenmore because dozer support was already anticipated in the FLS fire plan, which made the night duty manager's decision straightforward.

Where the Response Struggled

The problems recorded were procedural. Responders reported confusion over who was in charge, unclear muster arrangements, inadequate check-in and check-out, missing welfare checks during long shifts, insufficient PPE replacement, weak mobile signal and limited radio provision.

Firebreak Services could not mobilise a communications trailer carrying Starlink and VHF radio because it failed to establish contact with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) incident command. Several businesses absorbed servicing, damage and wear costs with no obvious route to reimbursement.

Helicopters were valued but constrained. Aircraft can attack directly only within suitable fire-behaviour limits, including flame lengths below roughly four metres, and Scotland depends on private contractors who may be committed elsewhere.

SLE argues they work best supporting ground crews, and calls for a contractual mechanism guaranteeing access during periods of very high and extreme wildfire risk.

Implications for Moorland Management

SLE's central policy argument concerns muirburn. Much of the highest-volume kit recorded, including Argocats, leafblowers, foggers and all-terrain vehicles, is bought and maintained because estates carry out planned muirburn.

It contends that licensing which makes lawful burning impractical or commercially unjustifiable would produce disinvestment in the equipment, training and experience currently sitting behind the wildfire response.

SLE's recommendations follow. It asks for a live capability register through the Community Asset Register, a standard mobilisation and tasking process under SFRS command, and local wildfire groups linking estate fire plans into landscape-level plans.

It also wants multi-agency exercises before the next high-risk season, and a reimbursement mechanism for private machinery modelled on the Cairngorms arrangement after the 2025 Carrbridge-Dava fire.

The report puts the choice plainly. Scotland can keep discovering during each major incident what capability exists, who can move water and which machines can reach the fire front, or it can establish that in advance.

At Glenmore-Strathnethy the capability was there. The system to use it was not.