In the Houses of Parliament, a new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Wildfires has recently been formed by Alison Hume, Labour MP for Scarborough and Whitby. Last summer’s fire on Fylingdales Moor, which is in her constituency, was the largest ever recorded on the North York Moors. Covering some 20 square kilometres it burnt over 1,400 hectares of peat, releasing an estimated 54,000 tonnes of CO2.
The APPG will bring together MPs, Peers and experts who will discuss and scrutinise current Government policy on various issues, including peatland management, national wildfire resilience, climate change and restrictions around disposable barbecues. Its aim is to improve understanding of the issue and support practical, coordinated action.
The formation of this APPG is a welcome step as the new moorland management policy being pushed by the current government is reducing and removing techniques used by land managers to mitigate wildfire risk, despite the raft of evidence proving that such methods are the most effective available.
The Secretariat for the newly formed APPG is the manager of an upland estate, with extensive and real-world experience of wildfire risk and its mitigation in the uplands. The Countryside Alliance will be engaging with this APPG to help ensure that upland land managers have the tools they need to minimise the great risks posed to our moorlands and their communities by devastating wildfires.
2025 was the United Kingdom's worst year for wildfires on record, and the risk of wildfires is believed to be increasing with climate change, which is rightly causing growing concern across Parliament and from fire services given the severe impacts wildfires have on communities, biodiversity, natural carbon capture and infrastructure. Nevertheless, last autumn, the government extended the ban on the prescribed, cool burning of heather and grass on deep peat, following a consultation that was based on a number of assumptions that are fundamentally flawed. The Alliance’s response to that legislation and the preceding consultation can be read here.