Study confirms climate change is heightening UK’s wildfire risk

Pictured (l to r): Kerryn Little and Katy Ivison – runner-up and winner (respectively) of the UK Wildfire conference series inaugural Charles Gimingham Award

A new study recently published in Nature journal confirms that climate change is resulting in more extreme fire weather during major heatwaves.

The study authors include Katy Ivison and Kerryn Little – winner and runner-up (respectively) of the UK Wildfire conference series inaugural Charles Gimingham Award which was presented at the UK Wildfire Conference in Aberdeen last November, hosted by the Scottish Wildfire Forum.

Researchers took field measurements of live and dead heather (Calluna vulgaris) and organic soil moisture content across the UK over 3 years, including an intensive sampling campaign during the July 2022 heatwave.

The report states that: ‘ . . .  during the record 2022 heatwave there was a harmonisation in fuel moisture controls across different fuel constituents, with those controls being driven by weather alone. This caused synchronised extreme dryness outside of current seasonal norms across all fuel constituents at the same time and place.

‘Future intense summer heatwaves can therefore be expected to align the most severe conditions for fire ignition, spread and impact in traditionally non-fire prone regions, producing humid temperate landscapes susceptible to extreme wildfire events.’

There are many land managers and wildfire experts who have long suspected this as a future scenario, but this study has provided robust scientific evidence that wildfire risk is increasing in the UK.

Read the published article