In this blog post we discuss cool burning, also known as controlled burning or prescribed burning, which is the practice of intentionally setting small, low-intensity fires to manage vegetation.
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What is Cool Burning?
Cool burning is a carefully planned and skillfully executed technique used during specific times of the year, typically winter, when conditions allow.
The goal? To reduce the amount of flammable material (fuel load) on moorlands, making them less susceptible to large, damaging wildfires.
The fires are kept "cool" meaning they burn at a low intensity and do not damage the carbon-rich peat soils.
Skilled gamekeepers have traditionally used cool burning as a land management practice for UK moorlands.
Why is Cool Burning Necessary?
The Looming Wildfire Threat
England's moorlands are at an increasing risk of catastrophic wildfires. Several factors contribute to this threat:
Increased fuel load: Restrictions on traditional land management practices, like controlled burning and mowing, have led to a significant buildup of vegetation.
Climate change: Drier conditions and increased temperatures exacerbate the risk of wildfires. Relative humidity has dropped sharply since 2000, causing plants to dry out faster during hot summers.
Devastating consequences: Wildfires release harmful pollutants, destroy habitats, and pose a risk to human life. The Saddleworth disaster in 2018 exposed five million people to dangerous pollution, and scientists estimate that dozens died early because of the fumes.
Fuel Load: The Key Driver
The amount of available fuel is a primary factor influencing wildfire:
Unmanaged vegetation: Areas where vegetation is left unmanaged become overgrown, creating a "disaster waiting to happen".
Older heather: Heather that is not managed burns with greater intensity.
Rewilding: Some argue that rewilding efforts, which involve less vegetation management, can worsen wildfire risk.
How Does Cool Burning Work?
Cool burning mimics the traditional land management practices used by indigenous communities in places like Australia.
Reducing fuel loads: Controlled burns remove the topmost vegetation, reducing the amount of dry kindling available for a wildfire.
Preserving peat soils: The "cool" nature of the fire ensures that it doesn't burn deep into the carbon-rich peat soils beneath the surface.
Allowing regrowth: Removing the shrub canopy can allow mosses to thrive, promoting carbon capture.
Best Practices for Cool Burning:
Small-scale burns: Incrementally cover large tracts of land through multiple small-scale burns.
Timing: Burning heather when conditions allow in winter.
Creating firebreaks: Controlled burning is a proven way of creating fire breaks and limiting the spread of wildfire.
The Benefits of Cool Burning
Wildfire Mitigation
Controlled burning reduces the risk of uncontrollable wildfires.
By reducing fuel loads, controlled burns limit the intensity and spread of wildfires.
Gamekeepers and moorland managers are often the first to respond to wildfires, using their expertise and equipment to extinguish them.
Carbon Management
When done correctly, cool burning can be a carbon-neutral management technique.
Avoiding peat fires: Wildfires release much of the carbon trapped in the underlying peat. UK peat soils contain more carbon than all the trees in Britain and France combined.
Promoting carbon capture: Removing the canopy can allow mosses to thrive, leading to greater carbon gains. Burning heather can help capture CO2, even if the heather is less than 10 years old.
Biochar: Biochar produced by controlled burning can lock up carbon in peatland soils.
Biodiversity
Controlled burning can benefit wildlife and ecology.
Creating diverse habitats: Burning heather communities with a varied age-structure results in a greater diversity of flora and fauna on a landscape scale.
Protecting rare species: Moorlands provide an ideal habitat for rare birds, insects, and mammals.
Benefits to grazing: Controlled burning can benefit ecology, wildlife, game birds, and livestock.
Concerns and Criticisms
Despite its potential benefits, cool burning is not without its critics. Common concerns include:
Greenhouse gas emissions: Some argue that controlled burns release greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change. However, emissions from burning just shrub canopy can only release what has already been locked up as the plants have grown.
Damage to peat soils: If not done correctly, burning can damage carbon-rich peat soils. However, skilled managed burning of topmost vegetation does not harm the peat.
It's important to note that there is no scientific consensus to support a blanket ban on controlled burning.
The Science of Heather Management: Peatland-ES-UK Project
To understand the impact of moorland management, the Peatland-ES-UK project has been studying heather burning compared to mowing or uncut approaches. This long-term study has revealed several key findings:
Unmanaged areas: Unmanaged areas of heather had several drawbacks, including the water table dropping and peat drying out, the associated carbon loss from decomposition, but also higher methane emissions.
Carbon storage: Both burning and mowing release considerable amounts of carbon during or in the first years after management, but this is counteracted by increased absorption later on.
Water table: Heather management seems to maintain higher water tables in the longer term, compared to areas of unmanaged heather.
Wildfire risk: Leaving heather unmanaged increases the fuel load over time, as well as the water table gradually dropping and the peat becoming dryer.
The Peatland-ES-UK project highlights the importance of long-term studies and holistic approaches to understanding moorland management.
Real-World Examples
Australia's Indigenous Approach
The indigenous approach to managing the driest inhabited continent on Earth involves conducting "cool" and "slow" controlled burns regularly at night.
These burns reduce fuel loads and incrementally cover large tracts of land through multiple small-scale burns.
The limited nature of these fires ensures that the forest floors are cleared of kindling and fuel, while the forest canopies remain untouched.
Gamekeepers in Action
Gamekeepers and moorland managers in the Peak District saved one of the most important moorland restoration projects in the country by successfully tackling a wildfire. Gamekeepers often have equipment such as fire-fogging systems, leaf blowers, and water bowsers which are useful in moorland areas inaccessible to a fire appliance.
The Role of Natural England
Natural England has been criticized for implementing policies that have restricted the removal of excess vegetation on moorlands. Critics argue that Natural England's focus on micro-management and ideological opposition to grouse shooting have prevented effective, broad-scale wildfire prevention. Natural England has also been accused of misleading ministers on the causes of fires like the Saddleworth fire.
What Needs to Happen?
Rethinking Policies
There is a need for a major rethink on how best to tackle devastating wildfires.
Taking a pragmatic, long-term, and holistic view to protecting upland peatland sites requires more tools in the tool kit, not fewer.
The government should instruct Natural England to make unfettered preventative licenses its default position and for Defra to issue them within a week of request.
The government should make it obligatory for landowners to implement heather burning or a suitable alternative like vegetation cutting or sheep grazing on their moorland.
Collaboration
Landowners and habitat managers need to work together, regardless of individual objectives, to protect the landscape as a whole.
The Peak District is well-placed to become a Centre for Excellence for wildfire training, analysis, and mitigation strategies, supporting FRS nationally.
Stakeholders need to be engaged to formulate responses to the evidence presented by wildfire risk assessments.
Public Awareness
More public information, signage, and education are needed to reduce wildfire risk.
People should be urged to help protect the very places they love to visit and walk by eliminating the hazards.
Disposable barbecues should never be taken onto a moor.
The risk of devastating wildfires on our moorlands is growing and cannot afford to be ignored. By understanding the science behind cool burning and advocating for sensible land management policies, we can protect these precious landscapes for future generations.
Want to make a difference?
Write to your MP asking for a meeting to discuss wildfire risk. You can use our free template here.