This article first appeared in Shooting Times
By Andrew Gilruth, Chief Executive, Moorland Association
It's been four years since Natural England decreed that moorland managers should drastically reduce traditional heather burning over deep peat. Gamekeepers were quick to point out that it would result in increased fuel loads available to disastrous summer wildfires. Now wildfire experts are worried.
A Peak District National Park report published in 2022 stated "the frightening potential of fire... reaching extremes both in the rate of spread and flame lengths far beyond the capacity of control" of our fire services. It added: "Little can be done to control the topography of the area or the increasingly fire-supportive weather, but fuel loading can be addressed."
We have had warnings. Seven years ago there was the Saddleworth Moor disaster. It scarred our landscapes and caused irreparable damage to the sub-surface peat. Vast quantities of carbon were released and smoke poured over Greater Manchester, with some five million people forced to breathe in pollution. Scientists said dozens died early as a result.
Yet what caused it? The fire ignited on land where Natural England had a de facto ban on winter burns - the heather could only be managed once every 23 years. With the heather growing 3in a year this created such a fuel load that, when the inevitable fires came, the fire and rescue service simply could not cope. They had to let them burn out.
Yet instead of encouraging landowners to tackle these excessive fuel loads, Natural England has piled on restrictions on preventative burning. This is contrary to wisdom, ancient and modern. Last year, a Parliamentary briefing on wildfires explained that "older heather burns with greater intensity and that to prevent wildfires vegetation management must be conducted continuously". Not every 23 years.
That was Westminster. At a Scottish parliamentary hearing, a fire and rescue services boss warned that relying on mowing excess vegetation can "leave a dry layer that actually encourages the spread of fire", whereas winter burning "is by far the most effective because it removes a fuel in its entirety".
So how come Natural England is doing the opposite of what the experts are saying? Perhaps because neither Natural England nor the environment department, Defra, has a single in-house wildfire expert. This is why they come up with flawed alternatives such as planting sphagnum moss, which often becomes so dry it serves as tinder for any spark.
This tedious overregulation seems to be driven by ideological opposition to grouse moors and a pompous sense of bureaucratic self-importance. The Prime Minister and his deputy have already castigated Natural England for its overregulation. Now with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, looking for budget cuts, there are many in the countryside who would erupt into cheers if Natural England bore the brunt.
Reverse Restrictions
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, might also raise a glass, for her department is responsible for putting out fires. With the horrors of Los Angeles fresh in her mind, she is aware of how the combination of bigger fuel loads and the UK's sharply decreasing humidity makes wildfires ever more likely.
So on behalf of the Moorland Association, I have written to ask her to reverse Natural England's restrictions on vegetation management and to make it the law for countryside fuel loads to be treated as seriously as those in cities. Flames and fumes are no respecter of the boundaries between rural and urban areas. All they need is a big fuel load, dry weather and a strong wind.
As I wrote to the Home Secretary: "Ministers will have to pray for the wind not to blow towards their constituencies and that no one gets killed in the fire's path."