Defra, Not Climate Change, is Turning England Into a Tinderbox

Satellite data reveals six times more land was burnt across the UK in the last decade than the previous one – and Defra’s own policies are largely to blame, says Ian Botham in the Telegraph. By restricting preventative winter burns and reducing upland grazing, the Department has created vast expanses of combustible vegetation, ignoring warnings from fire chiefs, wildfire scientists and its own officials. Read more:

How bad is the situation? Satellite analysis shows that six times more land was burnt in the UK over the last decade than in the previous one (151,954 hectares in 2016-2025 against 24,805 in 2006-2015). Do not be fooled by those who say this catastrophe is simply down to climate change. Sure, hot days drive moisture out of plants. But globally wildfires are down by a quarter because humanity has become better at creating firebreaks.

Defra hasn’t. Its response to climate change has been to sharply increase vegetation. Over the last 20 years its cuts in upland cattle and sheep grazing led to a 25% increase in highly flammable grass.

Another genius move has been stopping preventative burns of heather. Why do I care about this? Because during damp winter months these burns safely prune the dead material which is then replaced by younger plants. It is the dead heather which is combustible. And thanks to Defra we now have 74% more of it.

The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation.

The result is disaster after disaster. The massive fires at Saddleworth and Fylingdales started on land where winter burns had been blocked. At Saddleworth five million people inhaled poisonous smoke. By some estimates, 28 died prematurely.

When Downing Street starts asking questions of Defra, jaws will drop. Why did it further restrict winter burns despite the National Fire Chiefs Council warning this risked the lives of “firefighters and the public”? How come it also ignored the pleading of the country’s top wildfire scientists not to go ahead?

Burnham’s team will wonder why Defra allows upland vegetation to grow by one tonne every seven minutes. The truth is that Defra is clueless about the volumes because, despite being in charge, it has never calculated it. I am grateful that the Moorland Association has done the maths.

Nor did Defra do an impact assessment before its latest restrictions on heather management. It knew what the answer would be. In 2007 officials said stopping winter burns would produce “a much-increased risk” of wildfires. Which is exactly what we are getting. Rewilded land going up in smoke.

Other countries have learnt the hard way. Australia and California tried suppressing the prescribed burns that indigenous people had used for tens of thousands of years. By some calculations, dozens died before their governments saw sense. What will it take for ours to wake up?

And why do so few agree with Defra? Last year, an EU Commissioner, the US government and the G7 leaders backed winter burns. Scotland uses thousands of them over its deep peat each year. Defra, zero.

The Scottish government recognises that gamekeepers, trained by decades of winter burns, are critical to bringing wildfires, like the current one in the Cairngorms, under control.

In England, Defra officials say the department is helping “nature recovery”. Yet explain that to the animals which fail to outrun the flames. And why should Defra spend tens of millions on “peatland restoration” when the peat is then destroyed by wildfires? The best joke is that Defra says it is helping to create a “fire resilient landscape”.

Officials bamboozled ministers with a Natural England evidence review which they said justified their approach. A review which they claimed had received “rigorous” peer review. Yet one of the reviewers admitted he could not “pretend to have read it end to end” while another said their “brain could not keep track”.

The department argues that winter burns “damage” the peat. So how come a recent government-funded study by academics at Exeter University stated that winter burns do not “damage” the peat?

And how can Defra argue that winter burns dry out the peat when York University researchers found they make the ground “significantly wetter”? The trimmed plants draw less water out of the ground. So it is rewilding not winter burns which dries the landscape.

Worth reading in full.