Urgent Leadership Needed on Wildfire Prevention: Our Letter to the Deputy Prime Minister
- Andrew Gilruth
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
We recently sent a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is now responsible for handling the urgent threat of wildfire, highlighting how Government policies are exacerbating the problem. You can read the letter below or download a copy here.
Dear Deputy Prime Minister,
Urgent leadership needed on wildfire prevention
The Moorland Association welcomes Sir Keir Starmer giving you responsibility for dealing with the escalating problem of wildfires.[1] This is a pivotal movement; as you are aware, the National Fire Chiefs Council says that this year the rate of fires is already exceeding the previous record year of 2022.[2]
Climate change is contributing to the problem – relative humidity has plunged over the past 25 years meaning that vegetation is tinder dry for more of the year.[3] And, on climate, your Government has a strong policy.
However, the much greater problem is that other Government policies are making the risk of catastrophic fires far worse. These policies are causing a rapid increase in the fuel load of vegetation. The Los Angeles disaster showed that today’s accumulating vegetation is tomorrow’s wildfire. The greater the fuel load, the worse the inevitable conflagration.
So what policies are to blame? There are three – and all of them down to Natural England.
The first may surprise you. The sharp reduction in the national sheep flock – down 7% over the last two years – means that some 600,000 tonnes of extra vegetation is being left in the countryside every year. [4] This fuel load is compounding. We note that in the EU and the USA wildfire prevention policy specifically encourages extra grazing.[5] By contrast, Natural England discourages it.
The second area is due to ideology. Natural England has for years been clamping down on preventative winter burns of vegetation on moorlands.[6] This is supposedly to protect peat. But there is nothing more dangerous to these carbon stores than huge wildfires which transmit the fire through dry roots to the peat.
The third is too much regulation. Natural England restrictions on mowing have contributed to a 73% reduction in the amount of deep peat protected from excess vegetation.[7]
Up and down the country there are warnings of extreme wildfire risk. In Cumbria, Tim Farron MP has said the wildfire risk caused by Natural England’s reduction in sheep numbers shows “a complete lack of joined up thinking” within Government. It is “dangerous nonsense” that will “literally add fuel to the fire.”[8]
Meanwhile, a study for the Peak District National Park said “fuel loading” risked flames so high and fast moving that they were “far beyond the capacity of control”.[9] A Defra report on Dartmoor said that excess vegetation had made it into a tinderbox”.[10]
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Our Association’s members are responsible for one million acres and we wrote to the Home Secretary about wildfire risk in January.[11] Our letter received national newspaper coverage, but no reply from the Home Secretary.[12]
The National Fire Chiefs Council responded to our letter by reiterating its demand for “strategic decision and policymaking” by central Government.[13] It knows that firefighting resources are far too stretched to cope with major wildfires and that the dangers in tackling them are extreme.
A Home Office minister did tell Parliament of the need to “reduce fuel loads” and told fire and rescue authorities that they are “required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfire)".[14] However, of the 21 authorities contacted by our Association not one has said it has a plan for dealing with vegetation fuel loads.[15]
We ask you to require all fire authorities to insist on reductions in dangerous fuel loads. They are already required to do this in urban areas. But now, with the National Fire Chiefs Council saying UK wildfires are increasingly leaping the “rural-urban interface”, the need is to ensure this obligation is extended to the countryside.[16]
We further ask you to ensure Natural England recruits a wildfire expert to guide its policymaking. Meanwhile, it needs to be told to accept that land managers must take emergency action to reduce fuel loads. We have already asked our members to do this where necessary.[17]
Your intervention is needed to stop us having another Saddleworth Moor fire – or worse. That fire was visible from your constituency and some five million people in the Manchester area were afflicted by the smoke.[18] It started on land where Natural England had banned preventative burns for 23 years.[19]
Now, in defiance of reality, this wayward agency is planning even further restrictions on areas where fuel loads can be tackled.[20] You do not deserve to be blamed for the shortcomings of others.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Gilruth
Chief Executive
Moorland Association
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Attachments to Letter
Sources
[1] Angela Rayner took over responsibility for wildfire policy coordination on 1 April 2025: see statement by Keir Starmer: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written statements/detail/2025-02-13/hcws455
[2] NFCC says UK wildfire rate in 2025 exceeding record year of 2022: https://nfcc.org.uk/nfcc warns-of-heightened-wildfire-risk-and-urges-action-amid-rising-pressures-on-fire-and-rescue services/
[3] Relative humidity in the UK has fallen sharply since 2000: https://climate.metoffice.cloud/humidity.html#:~:text=While%20there%20is%20now%20more,%5 D%20%25rh%2010yr
[4] Defra data shows the English flock fell by 7.2% over the last two year from 14,921,607 in 2022 to 13,830,855 in 2024: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/livestock-populations-in-england/livestock-populations in-england-at-1-june-2023 Average sheep consumes roughly 1.5 kg of vegetation a day. See Table 2 on page 11, https://projectblue.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/Imported%20Publication%20Docs/Feedin gTheEweGuide_240613_Web.pdf
[5] EU uses grazing to reduce wildfire risks: https://civil-protection-knowledge network.europa.eu/stories/value-grazing-wildfire-prevention-tool U.S. Government uses sheep to reduce wildfire risk: https://www.fema.gov/case-study/bring-out-sheep
[6] Natural England restrictions on winter burning of vegetation: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/peatland-burning-new-regulations-for-blanket-bog-habitats/
[7] An RSPB funded study said that there was a 73% reduction in areas being managed by burning or cutting in the immediate aftermath of the Natural England ban on burning imposed under the Burning (England) Regulations 2021. See “Annual extent of prescribed burning on moorland in Great Britain”: https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rse2.389 NB the model was unable to “fully separate burning from cutting on moorland” meaning that neither method of reducing fuel load was taking place in the 73% of land where excess vegetation was previously being managed.
[8] Cumbria: Tim Farron MP on Natural England causing wildfire risks: https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/25061917.lake-district-major-risk-catastrophic wildfires/
[9] Peak District: fuel load causing extreme risks. See Peak District National Park report page ii: p2 https://www.peakdistrictwildfire.co.uk/_files/ugd/9c9ad7_a594c151525a4878a241bac12e93d409.pdf
[10] Dartmoor: Defra report said in December 2023 that excess vegetation had made Dartmoor into a “tinderbox”: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-protected site-management-on-dartmoor/independent-review-of-protected-site-management-on-dartmoor
[11] Moorland Association letter sent to the Home Secretary in January 2025: https://www.moorlandassociation.org/post/wildfire-letter
[12] Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail coverage of Moorland Association letter: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/21/moors-rewilding-england-la-wildfires/ and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14311195/Britains-religion-rewilding-puts-country-risk LA-style-fires-ministers-warned.html
[13] The National Fire Chiefs Council response to Moorland Association letter: see Attachments
[14] In February, 2025 a Home Office minister said “Each fire and rescue authority is required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfire)”: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-01-17/HL4185
[15] The Moorland Association has been asking fire authorities for their plans: correspondence available on request.
[16] NFCC concerns about fires leaping “rural-urban interface”: https://nfcc.org.uk/nfcc-urges-public caution-as-amber-wildfire-alert-issued/
[17] Emergency action recommendation from Moorland Association: https://www.moorlandassociation.org/post/emergency-wildfire-action-what moorland-managers-need-to-know
[18] Saddleworth fire exposed 5 million to dangerous pollution: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk england-manchester-52208610 and the pollution included lead and cadmium: “because of extensive toxic fallout from factories a century ago… “There’s 100 years’ of pollution buried along with the peat as it formed,” says [Professor Hugh] Coe.” See New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931853-300-smoke-from-moorland-wildfires-may hold-toxic-blast-from-the-past/ and the result was 28 premature deaths: “over the 7-day period 28 (95% CI: 14.1-42.1) deaths were brought forward, with a mean daily excess mortality of 3.5 deaths per day”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340286590_Impact_on_air_quality_and_health_due_to the Saddleworth_Moor_Fire_in_Northern_England
[19] Natural England said that the Saddleworth fire started at https://w3w.co/grub.slams.dart. The headkeeper said it started nearby at https://w3w.co/violinist.circular.speakers. Both spots are in an area which Natural England only allowed to be burnt once every 23 years. This Natural England ban is documented under the agency’s 2014 Higher Level Stewardship plan for this moor.
[20] Natural England plans to further reduce preventative winter burning of vegetation: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-proposals-to-ban-heather-burning-on peatland-to-protect-air-water-and-wildlife