Fire crews attended a record number of serious outdoor blazes in England in summer 2022 as scorching temperatures caused the number of naturally occurring wildfires to soar.
Figures released by the Home Office show there were 4,017 serious outdoor fires between July and September, during the period of record summer temperatures – almost three times as many as in the same period in 2021.
The figure was also 22% higher than that for 2018, the previous record summer for outdoor fires, when firefighters and the military were called to widespread burning in moorland areas around Greater Manchester.
About one in three of the fires in 2022 were started deliberately, with the majority accidental. However, 301 of the fires were marked as a “natural occurrence”, almost double the number in 2018 and far more than any other year on record. Between July and September 2021, just 33 naturally occurring outdoor fires were recorded.
There were a series of heatwaves last year as England experienced the driest July since 1935 and the warmest summer on record.
The Home Office figures cover the more serious fires attended by fire crews, which are those that have casualties, require five or more pumps to tackle, or happen at outdoor locations such as bridges, telephone boxes, boats or trains.
Many more outdoor fires take place that are not attended by fire crews or do not involve casualties or need large amounts of water to put out. Separate figures obtained by PA Media found fire services recorded at least 24,316 outdoor grassland fires in England from June to August last year.
Separate figures released by the Home Office show fire services recorded their slowest ever attendance times in the year ending December 2022. The average total response time to primary fires in England was nine minutes and 13 seconds, the longest seen since comparable statistics began.
There were 350 outdoor primary fires between July and September in Greater London, more than in any other fire brigade area, with 20 July marking the service’s busiest day since the second world war. London was followed by Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (256 outdoor fires), Essex (216), Norfolk and Kent (both 185).
About 227 of the serious outdoor fires last summer were caused by matches, 207 by smoking materials and 129 by cigarette lighters.
Dr Thomas Smith, associate professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, said: “The way a wildfire behaves (how fast it spreads, and the size of the flames) is linked to vegetation, the landscape, as well as the weather. The UK will experience more frequent high temperature extremes and dry spells due to the climate crisis. This will mean more extreme fire behaviour, and larger wildfires. We need a better understanding of how future climate extremes will affect wildfires in the UK, especially in heather moorlands.”
Prof Hannah Cloke, a natural hazards and climate researcher at the University of Reading, said people in the UK could learn from fire-prone regions in Australia or Spain to prevent fires from starting and spreading.
She said: “The number and scale of the fires we saw last year will become more typical in the UK as hot, dry periods become more common as the climate continues to heat up. The best way to prevent the worst impacts of wildfires in the long term is, of course, to urgently curb emissions of greenhouse gases. Research has shown that rapid global emissions cuts now would mean significantly fewer days of fire risk in the UK by the end of the century.
“Currently, there is no emergency warning systems for wildfires in the UK. Our experience from natural hazards worldwide shows that a carefully designed, implemented and tested early warning system is vital to save lives and protect property.
“We will need to make big changes to how we design our buildings and infrastructure to make them more fire-resistant and improve land management to reduce the risk of fires starting. In the future, we may need an army of volunteers who are trained to tackle wildfires wherever they occur.”
