The chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) Baroness Brown has told the BBC that “not enough action” had been taken after predictions were made that the country will face longer and drier summers because of global warming.
According to the National Fire Chiefs Council, in 2026 England and Wales had 1,350 wildfires which is a new record and an increase of 300 from the previous year.
Baroness Brown said that the UK is “not prepared for the challenging climate” and expressed her fears over more lives being lost to future blazes.
She said that precautions should include investing in specialist teams and equipment, but also “planning our woodlands, thinking about fire breaks” and early warning systems.
But the CCC’s criticism of government response dates back as far as 2012, when it warned of “more frequent wildfires due to warmer and drier conditions”.
Steve Wright, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, which represents firefighters, said more than a fifth of firefighter and control room posts across the UK had been cut since 2010, which left crews overstretched during the summer.
He said: “We had firefighters from London being mobilised to Yorkshire, firefighters from Merseyside being mobilised to Dorset.
“The effect, when you have wildfires happening at the same time across the UK, is there’s just not enough firefighters on the ground to be able to deal with them.”
The government said it was investing nearly £100m to improve national resilience capabilities, which includes piloting specially trained firefighting teams to combat future risks.
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