The Wales Wildfire Board are encouraging farmers and landowners to “Burn to Protect” the Welsh countryside over the coming season.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but fire has been used as a land-management tool for thousands of years in highland areas across the UK. Controlled burning can decrease the amount of flammable vegetation across a large area.
But the RSPB is calling for moorlands to be restored to peat wetlands. Heather - an oily, flammable plant - generally grows back after a burn, whereas a diversity of plants and waterlogged soil can prevent fire spreading.
The question of land ownership lies beneath this raging debate. Half of England and Scotland is owned by 1% of the population, and 8% of land in Britain is managed as grouse moor: wildfire-prone habitats created for the aristocratic sport of shooting grouse.
In England, grouse moors cover more land than Greater London and are owned by lords, earls, dukes and barons, as well as bankers and firms based in offshore tax havens.
As the climate crisis intensifies, these estates will transform into tinder boxes with increasing frequency - and it’ll be firefighters out there battling the blazes.
