Wildfire or Managed Fire, How Can This Be a Contentious Choice With All That's Happening?
By the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group
Out of control fires are raging not just in Europe but in the UK. Thousands of homes have been evacuated, some have burned to the ground. Landscapes and habitats have been destroyed, possibly irrevocably, and heartbreakingly deaths have occurred. Only today reports have come in of Greek firefighters losing their lives trying to extinguish wildfires on the island of Crete. How can anyone ignore these events and advocate ideological policies for the UK uplands that directly increase wildfire risk? If you didn't know, that's exactly what's happening. Yes we know, it's utterly bewildering.
The fire burning through the Cairngorms national park in northern Scotland
Wildfire is a very real and growing threat here in the UK. We shouldn't need any more evidence, it's happening right now.
These fires need only two things: fuel and an ignition source. The imposed land policies in place for the uplands are providing that fuel. All that's needed is the ignition, and there is an increasing list of possibilities as to where that ignition will come from. Arguments can rage about how fires start but they all share one common denominator: FUEL.
Currently in the UK we have landscape policy makers at DEFRA and Natural England who have absolutely no knowledge of working in the rural sector, particularly in the uplands. They have no practical, hands-on experience of actually managing vegetation or mitigating against wildfires, and they certainly do not have any skills or expertise in fighting them. So why is there no collaborative engagement between the boots on the ground personnel and those in the government offices? Answers on a postcard please.
Controlled burning
When these fires break out, DEFRA and NE officials are invisible. They conveniently disappear, entrusting the firefighting to the local gamekeepers, farmers, volunteers and regional fire crews. They might as well say "you WILL have this fuel thrust upon you and you WILL be expected to put it out".
There is a choice that can be made to reduce these horrendous fire incidents and it's right under the government's noses. Bring back controlled burning into our landscapes. Let the experts with the land based knowledge get back to what they showed in the past works in mitigating against these disasters. Let the moor managers create the fire breaks they once did using controlled burning techniques. Let them get back on top of fire prone vegetation, just as they did before this rewilding ideology of leaving moorland plants to grow unchecked was added to the upland agenda.