As wildfires continue to rage why are the National Parks not doing more to control access?

New guidance to moorland managers on requesting temporary access restrictions during exceptional wildfire conditions contains an uncomfortable revelation. Ask four National Park Authorities the same question about fire prevention and you get four different answers, ranging from a direction ready to activate to a general enquiries inbox. In the middle of the hottest summer on record, that is not good enough.

Guidance has been issued to moorland managers setting out how to request a temporary restriction of open access land under section 25 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 when fire risk becomes exceptional. Much of it is procedural. The most revealing part is the annex listing the National Park Authorities, because read closely it exposes just how unevenly this duty is being discharged.

National Park Authorities are the relevant authority for access land inside their boundaries. They are not bystanders in this. Where a moor lies within a National Park, it is the Authority, and nobody else, that decides whether the right to roam is suspended when conditions become dangerous. They may act on an application from a landholder. Crucially, they may also act on their own initiative. The power to protect these landscapes in a heatwave sits with them.

So how ready are they?

The Peak District National Park Authority has existing fire prevention directions linked to the Fire Severity Index, so that in an emergency the question is activation rather than application. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority states that certain fire risk closures are activated automatically once the Index reaches exceptional. Whatever one thinks of how these Authorities approach moorland management more broadly, on this narrow point they

have done the work in advance.

Now look at the other two.

For the North York Moors, managers are advised to email the Authority's general enquiries address, telephone, and ask for the message to be referred to whichever officer is responsible for CROW functions. There is no pre-prepared direction to point to and no named route in.

For Northumberland, the position is set out plainly. Substantial areas of the National Park are access land, local restrictions may apply, but the Authority does not currently publish a procedure for urgent section 25 fire prevention applications. Managers are told to telephone straight after emailing and ask for an acknowledgement, a case reference and the name of the officer dealing with it, which is precisely the advice you give when nobody knows who that officer is.

Consider what that means in practice. A manager watching the wind get up on a tinder dry moor is expected to establish, in real time, whether the Authority responsible for the ground has a plan, who holds it, and whether anyone will pick up the phone.

It is worth dwelling on the North York Moors, because this is the Authority that watched Langdale Moor burn for weeks last summer in one of the most serious wildfire incidents this country has seen, a fire started, on the official account, by campers with a naked flame in remote country. Public money is now being spent repairing the damage.

If any National Park Authority in England had reason to arrive at the summer of 2026 with a fire prevention direction drafted, mapped, agreed and ready to activate, it was that one. On the evidence of this guidance, it has not.

We would welcome clear, public answers from every National Park Authority with moorland in its boundary.

Does the Authority hold a pre-prepared fire prevention direction, and which parcels of access land does it cover?

What is the trigger for activation, and is it automatic at exceptional on the Fire Severity Index or a matter of officer discretion?

How many times has the Authority exercised its section 25 power on its own initiative, rather than waiting for a landholder to apply?

Who is the named officer responsible, what are their direct contact details, and what happens outside office hours, at weekends and on bank holidays, which is when the risk is highest and the visitor numbers largest?

What is the target turnaround time for an urgent request, and what has the actual turnaround been this summer?

Has the Authority approached the relevant highway authority about the public rights of way that cross the same ground, given that a section 25 restriction closes none of them?

And what has the Authority done to communicate the risk to the visitors it actively encourages onto the moors, beyond a notice at a car park?

None of these are unreasonable questions. Every one of them should have a ready answer.

This matters because of where moorland fires actually start. Overwhelmingly they begin at or near points of public access. Disposable barbecues, campfires, wild camping in places where it is not permitted, and carelessness with cigarettes account for the great majority of upland ignitions. National Park Authorities spend a considerable amount of effort encouraging people to visit, and rightly so. The corollary is that they carry a responsibility for managing the consequences when conditions turn dangerous.

There is a pattern here that upland communities have grown used to. Authorities have been energetic in restricting what land managers may do to reduce the fuel that carries a fire, and noticeably less energetic in restricting what visitors may do to start one.

Managed burning has been curtailed on the basis of an evidence review the upland community has contested at every stage and which Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has been examining. Meanwhile the tool that exists in statute to reduce ignition risk in an emergency sits unused in at least some of these Authorities, apparently for want of anyone having written the procedure down.

To be clear, closure is not the answer to England's wildfire problem. It is the last line of defence. The real answer is being allowed to reduce fuel loads in winter, so that when a fire does start it stays small, stays on the surface and stays out of the peat.

But if National Park Authorities are going to keep telling land managers that they cannot burn, cut or manage as they know how, then the very least the public is entitled to expect is that those same Authorities will act decisively with the one power they do hold when the Fire Severity Index goes to exceptional.

Two of the four Authorities in this guidance appear ready to do that. The other two should explain why they are not.