Wildfire In The North York Moors – A Detailed Account

By George Winn Darley, Owner of Spaunton Estate, North York Moors

This article first appeared in the North Yorkshire Moors Association magazine

In August, the North York Moors were gripped by the most extensive wildfire since at least 1976, centred at Langdale Forest and Fylingdales moor. Around 5,000 acres of smouldering peat took several inches of rain or other water to extinguish. In place of the usual Chair’s Foreword I have been asked to write about this incident.

What Occurred?

It is rare that one can be entirely certain what the initial ignition source of any wildfire was, but it is believed that this one was started some time in June by a wild camper’s fire in the remote conifer forest close to the source of the River Derwent (Derwent Head) at Langdale, 4 km due east of RAF Fylingdales and about 5-6km west of the A171 Whitby to Scarborough road.

We do know that in the UK all moorland wildfires have a human origin, from carelessness and stupidity to thrill-seeking and arson. Stray electrical sparks, unfortunate BBQs, sparks from motors and steam trains. The 50+ year-old conifer trees at that part of Langdale forest are planted on peat, something which is now considered very poor practice.

The Forestry Enterprise (FE) and North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) had been attending the scene of the fire and had tried to extinguish it with water and by digging around it, but it kept eluding them and travelling underground in the peat and popping up in various places.

On Monday 11th August it got away in the forest and quickly spread over the northern boundary into the adjoining Fylingdales moorland. Many local gamekeepers and farmers rushed to help the FRS, and on Tuesday the vegetation fire was suppressed. But the fuel load there (in other words the mass of plant matter vulnerable to burning) was high, with a high proportion of mature heather, and the peat was dry due to the drought.

Inevitably, the peat was ignited and smouldering. The essential process of damping down - putting masses of water onto the smouldering peat - had begun, with local farmers using their slurry spreaders to transport and spray water.

Then a bomb went off. A very big bang. A volunteer keeper was only 48m away, luckily shielded slightly by the slope of the ground, but shrapnel flew past him and high into the air. Had a tractor been on top of it the driver would probably not have survived. An FRS tender 200m away shook.

The Chief Fire Officer withdrew everyone back to the tracks which surrounded the approx. 1,000 acre area on the north and west sides. In-bye farmland on the east side was spread with water by farmers as it was burning into the grass there. It was monitored. That night and over the following days at least 18 similar explosions were recorded.

Fearful that the wind might drive the fire south again, or the still smouldering peat and tree remains  would re-ignite it, FE clear-felled trees off a 30-40m wide strip close to their stoned timber-lorry tracks on the south side and bulldozed all the vegetation and soil into a pile, leaving a bare strip down to the subsoil or rock for about a 2km length.

This was designed to protect the many thousands acres of forestry to the south. The Ministry of Defence paid for the strip to be extended north a few kilometres to protect the Fylingdales Early Warning Station. The cleared strip narrowed to 10-20m wide as it started to cross moorland designated as SSSI, SAC and SPA (Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, and Special Protection Area), and went past Lilla Cross to Louven Howe.

Fingers were crossed that rain would come and/or the wind would not make it worse. In vain. At about 4pm on Bank Holiday Monday, 25th August, the warm, dry, strong south-easterly wind fanned the smouldering peat and sent sparks flying over the top of FRS vehicles on the track – and very quickly the vegetation on the north side was now burning, again across an area with a high fuel load over dry, shallow peat. The fire was now heading north-west to Goathland and Sneaton High Moors, and the approx. 1,500 acre Newton House Plantation.

Again many locals attended to help. It was decided that a firebreak needed to be created rapidly to prevent the fire reaching these moors to the west, from where it would have headed straight to the A169 and probably Goathland village. The forestry track / bulldozed firebreak had not been extended to Newton House Plantation.

So it was decided to create a backburn firebreak next to the track beyond the bulldozed section. A backburn is where vegetation is deliberately set alight and carefully monitored to make it burn upwind, into the face of the larger fire which is driven by the wind. Doing this creates a bare area where there is no longer a fuel load, stopping the original fire in its tracks.

This was a risky operation but due to the experience of four nearby keepers, there was confidence it could be done. Tracks were cut by a swipe mower (a jungle-buster designed for cutting through scrub) on both sides of the intended burn area and the adjacent ground doused in water by at least seven farmers with slurry tankers who were carting and spreading water.

FRS tenders set up on the track to mist-spray flying embers. The keepers lit the backburn fire in small sections which quickly burnt through to the track/swipe cuts and was controlled. The process was repeated along the track. By 2.30 am they had joined up with the end of the bulldozed section.

The same neighbouring keeper who had been close to the first bomb to explode used his tractor and swipe to go and engage the enemy face to face. Driving over ground he was not familiar with, using experience and intuition and good lights, he cut the vegetation as close to the flames as he dared - thus slowing its advance and buying enough time for his colleagues to get the backburn firebreak complete.

The FRS wildfire tactical advisor (TacAd) was impressed and grateful. It worked! The westward spread had been arrested on the moor; but eastern parts of the Newton House Plantation, which was now in the direct face of the fire, were burning.

At about midnight the wind changed direction and drove the fire north and then slightly east. Some of the volunteers slept in their tractors for a few hours and then helped suppress the flames heading towards farms such as Biller Howe, Grouse Hill and Foulsike. The Woodsmith potash mine sent a digger to dig a firebreak on Sneaton Low Moor to prevent the spread over the road to their minehead site.

Some residents were fleeing with whatever possessions they could grab. Despite everyone’s best efforts the fire crossed the B1416 Ruswarp road, but was just stopped from crossing the A171. Several campsites were evacuated. Farmers and horse owners were trying to get livestock out of the area to avoid the smoke as well as possible incineration. Thick smoke made driving anywhere hazardous and one tractor and fire tender had a collision, writing off the tender, and there were many near misses. It was a massive community effort.

By Friday the fire was contained within a perimeter-excavated firebreak, but the all-important job of damping down hotspots and smouldering peat was going to take many days and weeks. FRS from far afield were drafted in to help support North Yorkshire, mostly from London. They were stood down again on 5th September.

A helicopter was brought in to help access difficult-to-reach areas with an experienced 73-year-old pilot and a ‘Bambi Bucket’ that holds 2 tonnes of water. Local contractors were set on to haul water in 12,000-litre bowsers and transfer it to slurry tankers, which then spread it on the moor. But due to the distance that the water was hauled from, one load per 50 mins was about all that could be achieved.

Discussions about recovery and revegetation have commenced. The National Park Authority has agreed to lead on this and funding is being sought. Early priorities are trying to prevent water pollution by blocking the shallow gullies that rain water flows along to reach the watercourses with bunds or bales; and stabilising the loose ash surface, probably by planting Deschampia wavy hair grass which loves fire sites.

pH will be tested and if needed a little prilled lime added with the seed to raise the pH to about 5 (still on the acid side of the neutral 7) to help get it established. This lime effect will dissipate over 3-4 years but provide temporary better growing conditions.

There are green shoots of grass appearing on part of the site burnt on 12^th August.  There is optimism that where the fuel load (amount of vegetation) was low (due to being cut, burnt or heavily grazed in the last about 5 years) that the fire will have passed over quickly at relatively low intensity and not burnt the peat, roots and dormant seed layer beneath.

These areas it is hoped will revegetate unaided and may in time become fully restored moorland. But where there is smouldering peat, intervention will almost certainly be needed and at best revegetation should be achieved but it will never be restored because its intrinsic value of peat and dormant seed layer has been destroyed forever.

Positives?

On the positive side, the operation was completed with no human deaths, no injuries to staff or volunteers and no built property burned. A huge Dunkirk spirit galvanised the community, with support for those helping in the form of baking and refreshments, and ‘go fund me’ pages raising thousands of pounds. The moor affected now has a low fuel-load and so will need little prescribed burning or cutting for a few years. There will be opportunities to discover more archaeology revealed by the removal of the peat.

Long-Term Costs

The environmental and economic costs of the fires are immense, with many costs yet to be realised. Ecosystems have been damaged and wildlife has been destroyed, from invertebrates to amphibians to small mammals. Flora and its unique seed bank have been lost. The ash will blow away and wash away in time but will cause massive pollution to our air and watercourses and the sea.

Much ash, like the smoke, from burning peat, contains toxic poisonous chemicals not found in smoke from vegetation burning. Carbon stores built up over thousands of years have been turned into polluting carbon dioxide, further impeding attempts to slow climate change. There is nothing left for the sheep that grazed the moor, and they will need to be fed elsewhere until it is revegetated.

The disruption to the local community and economy is immense, as the fire occurred at the end of the August summer tourist season. The A171 and other roads were closed until the schools went back on 4th September. Smoke filled shops, such that they had to close. The visitor economy suffered as people heeded advice to stay away, or fled to avoid the smoke.

The cost of the FRS operation, although partly funded by central government National Resilience Funding due to the fire being classified as a national emergency, is a huge burden on taxpayers. Many businesses will have lost important income and incurred extra costs. The impacts on people’s health from breathing in the smoke, and the stress of the catastrophe, will be felt for years.

It is clear already that several of those closely involved are understandably effected by mental stress and will need time and help from family and friends and perhaps counsellors to process it all.

Lessons?

In mid-September the incident was still live, with vigilance maintained to ensure no further flare-ups  from smouldering deep peat, and the Dunkirk local spirit is turning to anger about what went wrong and how the situation can be prevented from ever happening again. There are some early lessons to inform us.

1. Fuel loads were too high on the moor. NE had set limits over a decade ago on what can be managed using a 17-25 year cycle, such that 100-120 ha is prescribed to be burnt or cut each winter season over an area of some 2800 ha. But climate change means that the milder, damper conditions are extending growing seasons and fuel loads are building up much more quickly. Management needs to reflect this. Many other moors are using a cycle closer to 9 years now to reflect the quicker growing rates. The two largest wildfires in the North York Moors this century have both been on the same moor – in 2003 and now 2025.

2. NE still have a policy of believing that wildfire can be prevented by rewetting the peat and that there is no need to worry about fuel load as well. This policy is making England the only country in the world which does not major on fuel load management as its key pillar in wildfire reduction campaigns. The UK has become a laughing stock in the international wildfire community. Even Indonesia has proved that rewetting alone does not work. NE need to update their policies. It is not possible to rewet large areas of shallow peat, or peat on slopes, certainly not enough to prevent the peat igniting as a result of an intense fire caused by a high fuel load of vegetation over the drought stricken peat. 98% of NYM moorland is shallow peat. We can create soil, stone or coir berms or bunds in shallow gullies to slow the flow and rewet small areas but it’s effect will only impact a very small percentage of the moor area. Sphagnum plug planting may help but there is little sign yet that it will survive on most areas due to the low rainfall on the NYM so again its effect is likely to only help a tiny percentage of the moorland area.

3. If an area has UXO (Unexploded Ordnance) then the MoD should find it and make it safe. Until they do it must be accepted that the vegetation needs to be managed more, to keep fuel loads low enough that intense fires cannot build and there is plenty of short vegetation to enable quick and easy suppression to take place. More grazing, mowing or prescribed burning will be essential.

4. If a wildfire is in the peat then drastic efforts must be deployed immediately to extinguish it before it destroys stored carbon and eventually breaks out at the surface somewhere else and starts new vegetation fires.

5. Local knowledge is important.

6. Staff trained, experienced and equipped with swipes/jungle busters who can be deployed to wildfires are essential. The experience will be gained from carrying out prescribed burns in the winter season. Fylingdales Moor is the only large moorland area in the North York Moors that does not employ a full-time dedicated habitat manager or moor-keeper, although the shepherd and local contractors do their best to deliver a wildfire resilient landscape within the NE restrictions and with limited resources.

7. Tracks are essential to break areas up into fire containment blocks of perhaps 250 to 500 acres, depending on circumstances, and to facilitate access for firefighting, water-spreading, and to provide strips of low or no fuel load. The vegetation within 40m of each track should be managed to ensure there is a low fuel load that can be quickly suppressed or in extremis back-burnt to provide a broad firebreak without needing to dig all the peat up with an excavator. The national park has had a policy that says that high fuel loads should be surrounded by low fuel areas. This policy needs developing to embrace wildfire containment blocks. Perhaps each block should have a dedicated local contractor who is familiar with the site and able to spread water from the track-side as soon as a wildfire is active.

8. Areas of high fuel load left for, say, merlin zones or other biodiversity must be kept small. Merlin do not need big beds of deep heather, as the recent Merlin Magic study confirmed. Once flame length reaches 3m, which it does easily from an extensive bed of long vegetation, it is beyond the control of FRS, who have to wait until it is burning in shorter vegetation before they can suppress it.

9. Creating more open water stores to reliably hold water in droughts which are close to each containment area would help both speed up the delivery of water for suppression and damping down, and would also dual as valuable biodiversity ponds. Perhaps this is something that NYMA could use its resources to sponsor in a few places?

10. Wildfire fighting is very different to what most FRS staff deal with day to day. Should FRS at a regional scale have specialist wildfire units which can be deployed to lead on wildfire incidents with specialist equipment unique to wildfire needs? An extension of the Wildfire Tactical Advisor principle that is already working well. Perhaps start with one to cover the north of England, based in the North Yorkshire Pennines? Climate change means we will suffer more wildfires, as our neighbours are experiencing. The total area burned in Spain already this year is 397,000 ha, surpassing the 2022 record of 306,000 ha. At least four people have been killed this year, including a firefighter. France has just suffered its biggest wildfire in 75 years. Portugal has burned 262,000 ha so far this year, killing 3 people.

Conclusion

This has been a horrific experience for many people, and the cost both privately and publicly continues to mount and will be substantial. Carbon stores in peat have been lost forever. But there are a few relatively small positives to balance against it not least the fantastic community spirit.

At the time of going to press the NYFRS expect to be monitoring it on site for many weeks. There are valuable lessons to be learnt to ensure our precious landscape is more wildfire resilient in the future.  NYMA will follow the progress and report further in future editions of Voice.

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