Uncontrolled fires are raging across Wales, causing sorrow, loss and panic. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to all those working tirelessly to tackle, contain, and extinguish the flames. The hills and valleys of home are dry, brown, dusty and under stress. The climate is changing. The need to build climate resilience in our systems and landscapes is no longer a distant objective to aim for; it’s urgently needed now, not a theoretical discussion on what climate change will bring to Wales. Our new reality has landed.
In this new normal, Wales is especially vulnerable. A Wild Cymru investigation shows that Wales has the highest number of wildfires and uncontrolled fires in Britain.
The causes of the fires are many: campfires, intentional burns, sometimes just a piece of broken glass. But it is the underlying condition of the land which makes the spread of fire at such a frightening rate possible. Dry vegetation burns, wet vegetation is much harder to ignite.
The harsh reality of our new climate is impossible to ignore. We have gone from an exceptionally wet and mild winter – with over 50 continuous days of rain across much of Wales, and with south Wales experiencing 166% of its average rainfall, to consecutive heatwaves and record-breaking temperatures, via the warmest spring since records began. As we write a drought has been declared across the whole of Wales.
When fires ignite on peat, and it burns, it’s not just habitat which is lost: thousands of tonnes of carbon ‘locked’ into the land is released, damaging our efforts to prevent the climate spiralling further out of control.
Independent analysis of the 2025 Carrbridge-Dava Moor, in Scotland, classified the blaze as the UK’s first megafire. It also revealed that 85% of carbon emissions came not from surface heather, but from dry peat burning deep underground. When shallow peats, slopes, and soils dry out, they act as fuses, carrying surface fire deep into the earth.
Some have sought to blame ‘rewilding’ for the speed and intensity with which the hills have burnt. They argue that the reduction of livestock on the hills has allowed vegetation to grow unchecked, increasing the ‘fuel load’ which feeds the fires as they burn. In many of these cases, it’s the historic modification of these landscapes which has made them more vulnerable: drainage has extracted water from the underlying peats and soils, historic overgrazing has simplified the flora, allowing dense, thatchy grasses like molinia to spread and dominate, drying to ready-made tinder.
Far from causing these issues, we believe rewilding could help address them: rewetting peat and establishing native woodland and scattered scrub to help improve underlying soil structure and organic matter, increasing infiltration of water and aiding retention, making the ground harder to burn (releasing less carbon when it does). Increasing floral diversity, to outcompete tinder-generating grasses. Creating firebreaks through the natural grazing habits of large herbivores. It is these dynamic, mosaic landscapes where natural processes are allowed to unfold that are the most likely to prove resilient as the climate transforms.
We are also acutely aware that when a crisis hits, it is easy to reach for comfortable stories. For different sides to assign blame where it’s convenient, and present solutions which fit our own worldviews neatly. As the fires ebb and we count the cost to our landscapes and communities, we will be looking at the evidence with an open mind, and commit to work with all those who love the land in Wales to prevent all that we treasure falling to flame.
With that in mind, we present the following policy actions as offerings to the conversation:
- Reduce the likelihood of fire ignition through public engagement and education initiatives and targeted prevention campaigns.
- Ensure a well-funded, well-coordinated emergency response can be deployed when wildfires take hold, with a cross-border collaborative approach between land managers, fire and rescue services, communities and governments, on response and best practice learnings.
- Increase the long-term resilience of landscapes through encouraging a wetter and more structurally dynamic mosaic of habitats across our landscapes, including:
a. Support for the introduction of large herbivores, that can, through wild grazing patterns, promote mosaic habitat patterns and help reduce fuel continuity.
b. Encourage beaver wetlands in suitable river catchments, in at-risk landscapes, helping hydrological restoration and increased landscape resilience at catchment scale.
c. Rewet and restore degraded peatland habitat as a priority to prevent deep peat fires. This will help with carbon storage also.
d. Increase funding and policy support for landscape-scale actions to restore ecosystem function, delivering a healthy mix of woodland, scrub, grassland, wetlands and open habitats to lower risk and aid recovery following fire. - Invest in support and training for fire mitigation plans for landowners and managers- including education on how to engage in risk and intensity reduction measures eg where grazing cannot or has not created complex habitats and natural firebreaks, they must be cut and maintained.