‘Unprecedented’ summer of wildfires sparks Welsh fire resilience summit: what satellites show

Wales holds its wildfire summit today

The First Minister of Wales, Rhun ap Iorwerth, is holding a multi-agency wildfire summit on 22 October. He promised it on 12 August, after attending a meeting of the UK government's emergency committee, COBR, saying he would "convene a multi-agency summit in Wales to strengthen wildfire prevention and resilience" and share the results with partners across the UK. The Prime Minister's own wildfire summit is expected in October too, according to MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Four major incidents were declared in Wales in July and August, according to Senedd Research: on Conwy Mountain, on Llanwonno Mountain in Rhondda Cynon Taf, at Llangynidr Reservoir near Ebbw Vale and at Rhandirmwyn in Carmarthenshire. South Wales Fire and Rescue Service had military help in August, and Welsh services had help from English ones on several large fires.

The Denbighshire Free Press reported on 22 October that South Wales Fire and Rescue Service saw a 227% increase in calls and responded to more than 1,000 grassfire incidents, and that at one point 14 incidents were running at once in Wales. "This was unprecedented for us," its Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Matthew Jones, said in the paper's report. It reported that aerial support, climate change, technology, funding and prevention are expected to be discussed, and that no fire and rescue service in Wales has its own aircraft; Natural Resources Wales has contracts with helicopter operators.

Second-highest year on record? It depends which satellite record

The figure in the Denbighshire Free Press report is 28,299 hectares of UK land burnt in 2026, from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), described as the second-highest year on record. Senedd Research gave the same figure in September for the year to 1 September, and GWIS still showed 28,299 hectares when we read it on 22 October.

It holds on GWIS, whose UK figures start in 2012: 2026 is second, behind 2025's 43,629 hectares, and just 199 hectares ahead of 2019's 28,100. That is about 1.9 times the 2012–2025 average of 14,861 hectares.

The EU's other record, the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which our wildfire tracker reads, has UK figures back to 2001 and ranks 2026 third. It puts this year at 25,084 hectares from 79 mapped fires, behind 2025 (47,879) and 2019 (28,754), and about 2.8 times its 2006–2025 average of 8,838 hectares. On that record 2026 is about half of 2025.

The two systems map fires from satellite images in different ways, so their totals differ, and both count only fires large enough to map, not every fire. Senedd Research said in September that Wales-only wildfire statistics for 2026 were not yet available.

More fires than 2025, though not the most in England's longer record

Counted by fires attended rather than land burnt, this year is a record in the fire chiefs' figures. Fire and rescue services in England and Wales have responded to over 1,300 wildfires so far this year, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said on 21 October, more than in the whole of 2025, itself a record-breaking year. The fire chiefs' published series starts in 2020.

The government's own series for England, which starts in 2010, still has 2022 highest: 1,592 wildfires that year, against 1,354 from January to August 2026, a provisional figure (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 8 October). We looked at both counts in more detail in our check of the wildfire record claims.

What MPs want done

The committee's report, published on 21 October, says summer 2026 "exposed severe weaknesses" in the UK's preparedness and response, to be tackled in time for next spring. Its chair, Alistair Carmichael, said: "Two consecutive, record-breaking years of wildfires should be ringing alarm bells in Westminster."

The UK has no dedicated firefighting aircraft, the report says, though some fire services have contracts with private providers, and a limited number of military water-bombing aircraft are permanently based in Cyprus. The committee wants a detailed plan for aerial firefighting by January 2027.

For the public, it recommends a clear way to bring in future nationwide restrictions on the sale of disposable barbecues in high-risk periods, a public awareness campaign by spring 2027, and wildfire risk given routinely in weather forecasts and apps by the start of next year's season. It also asks for a cross-government Wildfire Action Plan by the end of 2026, a National Wildfire Strategy for England and clear rules on water companies' duties to fire services in major incidents.

Responding to the report, a government spokesperson told PA that improving wildfire preparedness is a major priority and that "this week we are holding a summit with Government ministers, fire and rescue leaders, land managers and other partners".

Where things stand now

The fire weather has eased. Our wildfire tracker, which reads the EU's Copernicus fire weather index at one point in each region, showed low danger in all 14 UK regions on 21 October. For England and Wales the official measure is the Met Office Fire Severity Index.

Smoke on Welsh hills this winter may be planned. The season for controlled burning of heather, grass, bracken and gorse opened on 1 October and runs to 15 March, or 31 March in the uplands, and land managers are asked to tell their fire service before they burn (North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, 1 October).

Spring is usually the riskiest time of year. UK wildfires are most likely then, when there is plenty of dead, dry vegetation after the winter, with a second peak in summer (Department for Transport and Met Office, October 2025).

What it means for your household

Most UK wildfires are started by people, so the advice from GOV.UK Prepare and the National Fire Chiefs Council is about small things. Do not light fires in the countryside or other open spaces. Use barbecues only where they are allowed and never leave one unattended. Put cigarettes out properly, take rubbish home and never release sky lanterns.

If you see a wildfire, move to a safe place and call 999 straight away rather than assuming someone else has. Do not try to put it out, and do not travel to look. If you are told to leave or to stay indoors, do so. If smoke reaches your street, keep windows and doors shut and check the air quality tracker.

If you live at the edge of open land, the preparation that pays is the ordinary kind: a written household emergency plan, medicines and documents easy to grab if you are asked to leave, and emergency alerts left switched on.