Preparing for wildfires

Representatives of organisations involved in tackling the wildfires, which took place across Scotland this year, have come together to reflect on how to prevent future incidents.

The summit was held in Grantown and hosted by the Scottish government and considered ways to improve resilience and prevent future outbreaks.

The event is a result of Scotland enduring the largest wildfires in living memory, with 13 wildfire alerts in Scotland this year alone and Dava in the Highlands enduring the worst damage.

The summit was co-chaired by Agriculture Minister Jim Fairlie and Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown in the Cairngorms National Park and attendees included the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), NatureScot, Scottish Land and Estates, land managers and environmental organisations.

Commenting afterwards Mr Fairlie said:

“I want to thank everyone who attended today. It has been fantastic to get everyone with the expertise and experience together, including land managers and those who were actually involved in fighting the fires, to share all of their learning.

“This has been a great opportunity to listen to people’s views on how we can best prepare and respond to these fires safely and effectively in the future to avoid the harm they cause to local environments and people’s health and wellbeing.

“For me, this meeting has highlighted that prevention is better than cure. Unfortunately the impacts of climate change in Scotland means that wildfires like the ones we have seen this year, some the largest in living memory, are likely to become more frequent occurrences in Scotland in the future.”

“When there is that increased risk of wildfire, people need to be taking greater care to ensure they aren’t lighting fires where there is a likelihood of these triggering events such as those we have seen over the summer.

“The findings from today’s discussions will be taken away and presented to MSPs after recess to give them a chance to feed in, and this will be combined with a series of debriefs by SFRS and public agencies to help identify any additional lessons learned.”

Ms Brown said:

“Since the wildfires, we’ve engaged closely with SFRS, local communities and Scottish public sector bodies on building resilience to wildfires.

“We continue to support the full implementation of the SFRS wildfire strategy, which will see the continued roll-out this year of new equipment, vehicles and Personal Protective Equipment.”

SFRS Director of Prevention, Assistant Chief Officer Jon Henderson said:

“This year Scotland has faced an unprecedented scale of wildfire risk, and our crews have attended more than 200 wildfires across the country.

“Wildfires can employ a significant amount of our resources, they also have the potential to burn for days and devastate vast areas of land and wildlife, threatening the welfare of nearby communities.

“We will continue to work closely with our partners, landowners and communities in both our response and importantly to help prevent wildfires, and we welcome the opportunity to participate in this summit.”

Head of Land Management at the Cairngorms National Park Authority, Colin McClean, added:

“The Park Authority welcomes this event, which provides an opportunity for critical conversations to take place on wildfire mitigation and management.

“Alongside ministers and stakeholders, we look forward to discussing solutions for building on the work we are already doing here in the National Park. Through our Integrated Wildfire Management Plan, the Climate Adaptation Fund and the new fire byelaw (recently approved by Scottish Ministers and coming into effect in 2026), we are putting in place clear, practical measures to reduce the risk of wildfire. Coming together at events like this will help strengthen that work and ensure we are as prepared and resilient as possible.”

The SFRS classifies wildfires as large and uncontrolled outdoor fires exceeding 1,000 sq m of burned area. Wildfires are unplanned and unpredictable. They happen in areas with combustible vegetation that causes flames to spread rapidly.

Human activity is often to blame – with fires started by barbecues, glass bottles magnifying sunlight on dry vegetation, or discarded cigarettes and one of the reasons fires continue to burn on moorland is because of peaty soil which fuels the flames.

A roundtable discussion with MSPs will be held following Parliamentary recess to share the findings from wildfire engagements to date and to give parliamentarians the opportunity to make contributions before any next steps.