The burning issue

Wildfires are on the rise in the UK, but scientists have been developing innovative ways of preventing them, using the power of nature

- JO CAIRD

THE RECENT WILDFIRE events in Europe, Canada and Hawaii - and, prior to that, other US states and Australia - may dominate the headlines, yet wildfire is an issue faced by the UK, too.

Before the soggy affair that was July and August, a spell of hot weather meant wildfires were very much on our national agenda. In June, firefighters tackled a wildfire the size of 300 football pitches in woodland on Rhigos Mountain in South Wales. Around the same time, a nearly 2km-long patch of moor and woodland just south of Inverness went up in flames. A few days later, yet another wildfire was burning on Marsden Moor in West Yorkshire, the eighth in the area since February.

These are just a few of the wildfire events that have taken place in this country this summer, and there will be more in summers to come, each the result of action by humans, whether careless or, more likely, deliberate. A smouldering cigarette butt tossed into the undergrowth. A spark from a barbecue. An act of arson motivated by who knows what.

There are places in the world where wildfire is beneficial to ecosystems. In the boreal forests of Russia and Canada, for example, or the Australian bush, where lightning is a common source of ignition, wildfire has historically been part of a regular cycle of destruction and renewal, critical when it comes to maintaining biodiversity in a given environment. In the UK, however, where we have no so-called 'natural ignitions' from lightning, it's a different story.