Wildfires ravaging Europe offer stark warning to Britain if we continue down current path

Thousands of firefighters across Europe are battling an ongoing wave of wildfires, some of which have been burning for days, as temperatures continue to rise. 

In many countries the military have been brought in to help control the blazes but widespread evacuation orders remain in many places across Europe, particularly Spain and Portugal.

Spain's meteorology service AEMET predicted that temperatures in central and southern Spain could exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) by Sunday. In Portugal, temperatures are expected to rise Saturday into the upper 30s Celsius across most of the country.

Across Greece and Turkey wildfires have been at their most extreme for decades, with carbon emissions at their highest since records began for the latter.  

Hundreds of people have been killed and many thousands more are now suffering with chronic illnesses as a consequence of smoke inhalation.  One recent study suggests that smoke pollution from wildfires may be causing an additional 12,000 deaths annually in Europe

Although Britain has yet to see temperatures consistently at that level our country has also had its worst year for wildfires in decades, and the trend is getting worse.

By June this year the area burned by wildfires had already surpassed the previous annual record, with 45,614 hectares (112,710 acres) destroyed. It is expected that these wildfires generated .40 megatonnes of carbon emissions, its highest annual wildfire emissions. 

Furthermore wildlife in their millions, including endangered species, have been destroyed. The majority of the areas that have been wiped out by wildfires are on unmanaged land where controlled burning is not practiced in favour of rewilding and/or rewetting, as vegetation had been left to grow unchecked creating a huge amount of flammable load. 

Against such a background of destruction and danger you would expect, like in almost every other country on earth, for firefighters and land managers to be given every possible tool in their arsenal to prevent such occurrences.

Yet in the UK there are once again efforts being made by some in Natural England to prevent the use of controlled burning in the winter, to remove the surface vegetation that causes such destructive wildfires. 

In their last review Natural England pushed a narrative that all controlled burning is detrimental to peatland and proposed increasing restrictions to all peat over 30cm in depths, rather than that over 40cm.

This will vastly increase the area that the restrictions apply to. There is now suggestions that they are considering a further recommendation of applying their guidance to all peat over 10cm in depth. Such guidance would not only be madness, but also highly dangerous in the likelihood of lethal wildfires in the future. 

As the threat of wildfires continues to rage across the world, Britain risks becoming the only country where we are looking to apply more restrictions on our ability to manage the increasing threat levels, rather than more. The consequences of this stand to be perilous.