New Techniques To Curb European Wildfires Discovered

Firefighters have discovered new techniques to manage the wildfire hotspots which has caused  climate change and has brought great risk in the UK.

Last year’s heatwaves had broken homes at Wennington, east London.

This year has already seen hundreds of grass fires and one of the UK’s largest ever has been burning near Cannich in Scotland for the past two weeks.

More fire crews are now training in skills from southern Europe and the US.At the moment, just five UK units across more than 50 fire and rescue services specialise in the “fighting fire with fire” technique, mostly in moorland areas.

With more than 90 buildings destroyed by wildfires close to urban areas last July, more units – including those in services that straddle urban and rural areas – would be trained in new ways of wildfire fighting.They could then be deployed nationally, in the event of a significant fire.

Chief Fire Officer Paul Hedley, wildfire lead for the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), said the risk and threat of such major wildfires was “clearly growing in the UK”.

“All of this learning from international partners, who are probably still some years ahead of us, is a very sensible way of trying to get us ahead of the curve,” he said.

It is hoped a UK-wide training programme will be set up as part of a national action plan drawn up in response to the lessons learnt from last year’s blazes.

One of the services leading the way is Surrey Fire and Rescue, which has already dealt with more than 80 wildfires this year.

The most recent wildfire was last month at Frensham Common, near Farnham, a popular beauty spot.

“Whilst we can save some of these animals that survived the fire, we lose an awful lot and we lose all that biodiversity. It takes years, if not decades, for that to come back again,” explained trustee Howard Inns.

For countryside ranger Darren Hill, who supported firefighters tackling the blaze here, seeing the aftermath, and knowing more wildfires could be on their way, is hard to take.

“To come back and see a site like this, and know I found this species over here and we had smooth snakes over there, it does take its toll,” he said.