A record year for wildfires was last night blamed on Labour’s environmental policies.
Some 1,017 infernos have ravaged England and Wales this year – already as many as there were in the whole of 2025, the previous worst year.
With temperatures forecast to hit 38C today, campaigners say the Government has ignored warnings that its policies have turned swathes of countryside into tinderboxes.
They say Labour’s rewilding drive, which involves allowing nature to look after itself without human interference, has caused a huge build-up of dry vegetation primed to ignite in heatwaves.
Gamekeepers and farmers traditionally carried out controlled burning of heather and grasses in the cooler months – encouraging new shoots on which grouse and sheep graze.
Last year, Labour extended rules preventing the burning on 1.6million acres of land.
It says the move, targeted at peatlands, would improve air quality and protect environmental and public health.
Jonathan Roberts, of the Country Land and Business Association, said: ‘Last year was the worst on record for wildfires, yet ministers responded by making it harder for land managers to carry out the controlled burning necessary to stop wildfires taking hold in the warmer months.
Firefighters battling a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston in Suffolk, on July 30. There is no suggestion this fire was as a result of rewilding
Drivers were ordered to abandon their vehicles and walk down the side of the A31 when the fire took hold on Sunday afternoon. There is no suggestion this fire was as a result of rewilding
‘Government has in effect banned the single-most important method of preventing wildfires, and we are now living with the consequences. Put simply, they must reverse the policy immediately.’
His concerns are echoed by the Countryside Alliance, which said ministers had made a ‘foolish decision’.
‘Moorland communities are facing increasing challenges, the Government having recently more than trebled the area over which the controlled burning of vegetation is effectively banned in our uplands,’ it said.
‘The Countryside Alliance has repeatedly warned that by ignoring the latest scientific evidence, the Government is significantly increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.’
The warnings came as more than 100 firefighters tackle a major blaze in the New Forest that has raged for four days.
Numerous other fires around the country have stretched resources, with crews in South Wales yesterday describing ‘carnage’ as they battled seven separate blazes, some of which they believe were set maliciously.
Andy Burnham last night called on shops to stop selling disposable barbecues, which he said were behind many of the blazes. He hinted at a summertime ban in the future.
Lord Botham, a vocal critic of rewilding, urged the Prime Minister to take ‘decisive’ action and place the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which manages the policy, into special measures for ‘reckless incompetence’.
The blaze tore through hundreds of acres of heathland and forced fire chiefs to declare a major incident. There is no suggestion this fire was as a result of rewilding
‘Our wildfire crisis is man-made. It is the result of dreadful policy mistakes repeated year after year,’ the former England cricket captain said.
‘For two decades we have added far too much vegetation to our landscape and are now suffering the inevitable consequences. Unless Andy Burnham acts decisively there will be fatalities.’
Natural England insists heather burning damages carbon-storing peat and it instead promotes mechanical cutting – but critics say while this reduces the so-called fuel load, it leaves ignitable materials behind.
‘The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation. The result is disaster after disaster,’ Lord Botham wrote in a newspaper.
‘The new winter burning season is due to start on October 1. The Prime Minister has only weeks to reverse last year’s ban and get these preventative winter burns restarted.’
Andrew Gilruth, of the Moorland Association, said: ‘Rewilding sounds like a good idea, unless you end up facing a wall of flames.
‘We simply have far, far too much vegetation covering our landscape and until we reverse rewilding, the wildfires will get worse and worse.’
Defra said its policies were a ‘long-term’ solution.
A spokesman said: ‘Peatland restoration is the most effective, sustainable, and long-term solution for reducing fuel load on degraded peatlands, as wetter, healthy-functioning peatlands hold more water in the landscape for longer and are more resilient to the impacts of wildfire.’
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