Britain is experiencing an extraordinary year for wildfires after firefighters were called out to twice as many incidents during the first six months of 2025 as any year on record.
The driest spring in more than 50 years and three heatwaves, including one this weekend that is expected to result in temperatures of up to 33C, have created the conditions for a record number of blazes on moorlands, heathlands and grasslands.
Fire services responded to 649 calls to wildfires in England and Wales between New Year’s Day and July 9, dwarfing the same period in previous years. In the same months in 2022, Britain’s previous worst year when dozens of homes in London were destroyed by wildfires, there had been only 315 incidents at this stage.
Despite the attention on wildfires in Crete and the outskirts of Marseille, satellite monitoring reveals that Britain has had a larger area struck by wildfires this year than any EU country bar Romania. More than 175 square miles have been burnt.
Dave Swallow, wildfire tactical adviser at the National Fire Chiefs Council, said he had never experienced a year like this. “Not a prolonged dry period like this. You know, I was in the Greater Manchester fire service in 2018 and attended the fires around Winter Hill [north of Bolton] and Saddleworth Moor [between Manchester and Sheffield]. But it wasn’t as dry for as long as it has been this year,” he said.
Firefighters attend a wildfire at Upton Heath in Dorset during the spring
GRAHAM HUNT/ALAMY LIVE NEWS
He fears this year will eclipse the previous worst year of 2022. “I’d be surprised if we don’t massively pass the number of wildfires that we saw in 2022. Everything’s had much longer to dry out, including property. It increases the flammability of everything,” he told The Times.
Monday looks likely to be the worst day for fire risk in the present heatwave, Swallow said. “The fire severity index reaches exceptional [the highest on a five-point scale], which is extremely rare. It didn’t even get to that in 2018,” he said.
The UK’s sunniest spring on record created conditions ripe for wildfires. Soils and vegetation have dried out. The hot weather means many farmers are starting cereal crop harvests weeks earlier than usual, but also leaving many fields full of bone-dry barley and wheat that is ripe fuel for fires.
On one recent wildfire in Leicestershire the blaze take root in an old railway embankment which was full of coal, waste and other fuel. It took firefighters more than 24 hours to put it out, and required excavators to move the fuel powering the fire.
Swallow attended two field fires with Hereford & Worcester fire brigade on Tuesday, which were strikingly unusual. Such fires would typically have flames about one to two metres long but they stretched to four metres. Hedgerows that are normally green and wet enough to act as firebreaks are so dry the fires are burning through into adjacent fields. “We’re starting to see a change in the fire behaviour,” Swallow said.
The record number of incidents is also straining water supplies just when drought conditions are expanding across the country. Swallow said fire services had used more water tackling wildfires than any year to date. He urged the public to help by having “no open flames of any kind”, meaning no cigarette butts, campfires, bonfires or barbecuing beyond gardens.
Thomas Smith, a geographer at the London School of Economics, said that historically most of Britain’s wildfires happened in spring because vegetation was in full leaf by summer.
He said heatwaves were now “breaking” that norm, and a large wildfire in Scotland at the end of June was extremely rare for that time of year. “It’s a warning sign that things are changing, because the vegetation clearly has been pushed into a state that is flammable,” he said.
Another unusual trend this year has been forest fires in England, Smith said. There have been instances of fires burning through needles on forest floors, including a recent blaze at Halton Heath in Dorset.
Analysis, shared with The Times, suggests that two thirds of the government’s plans to adapt to climate change are inadequate. The research by the Green Alliance think tank looked at plans to cope with everything from flooding to overheating homes.
Shaun Spiers, executive director at the group, said: “As the third heatwave of 2025 hits us, it’s alarming that the government’s plans to prepare the country for climate change aren’t up to the job. But the government can make up for lost time by adapting homes to cope with floods, setting resilience standards for critical infrastructure and preparing homes for extreme heat.”
A government spokesman said: “We are strengthening our resilience to a changing climate. This includes funding a national resilience wildfire adviser, investing a record £7.9 billion to protect the country from flooding and £400 million in tree planting and peatland restoration.”