The UK has been warned it is \u201cdangerously unprepared\u201d for the growing threat of wildfires, flooding and the wider impacts of the climate crisis – as experts call for \u201cimmediate\u201d investment.<\/p>\n
From January to November, the Global Wildfire Information System estimates that wildfires have burned a staggering 47,026 hectares in the UK.<\/p>\n
This marks the largest area in any year since monitoring began in 2012 and is double the area burned in the record-breaking summer of 2022, where the Met Office found climate change made severe fires six times more likely.<\/p>\n
\u2018Limiting the damage\u2019 of climate change<\/p>\n
The record number of blazes has resulted in calls for the UK government<\/a>to \u201climit the damage of climate change\u201d by urgently slashing carbon emissions.<\/p>\n The Fire Brigades Union, which represents firefighters and control staff in the UK, warns the number of days with \u201cvery high\u201d fire danger will triple by the 2050s and rise more than fivefold by the 2080s if global warming <\/a>continues to accelerate.<\/p>\n The risk of intense rainfall is also rising sharply, posing a serious flood risk across the country \u201cnow and in the future\u201d. Just this weekend, Storm Claudia<\/a> brought severe flooding to parts of Wales and England, with at least one major incident declared.<\/p>\n The union has therefore written a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband, urging the UK to implement a nationwide strategy to prepare fire and rescue services for the \u201caccelerating climate crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n The UK\u2019s budget cuts<\/p>\n \u201cThe fire and rescue service has lost nearly 12,000 firefighters since 2010, equating to one in five posts,\u201d the letter \u2013 which has also been signed by Greenpeace, Tax Justice UK, and Friends of the Earth \u2013 reads.<\/p>\n \u201cCentral government funding has been cut by 30 per cent in cash terms alone, and a lot more in real terms.\u201d<\/p>\n The union argues this has resulted in many services facing equipment shortages, under-staffed control rooms and \u201cinsufficient\u201d protective gear.<\/p>\n Back in August, 17 fire and rescue services were drafted in from as far as Greater Manchester to respond to a wildfire<\/a>in Holt Heath, Dorset (around 363km away).<\/p>\n Many firefighters responding to the incident didn\u2019t have specialist wildfire PPE, putting them at increased risk of heat stroke, exhaustion and burns.<\/p>\n Despite the clear struggles of investment cuts, the union argues this year\u2019s Local Government Settlement is eying up more reductions.<\/p>\n \u201cModelling by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has shown that another \u00a3102 million [approximately \u20ac116 million] could be cut to make up for the shortfall in budgets, leaving fire services less capable of responding to major incidents,\u201d the letter adds.<\/p>\n A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson told Euronews Green: “We know the risk wildfires and floods pose to communities which is why we are taking decisive action to ensure fire services and national bodies can manage and respond to emergencies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis includes funding a National Resilience Wildfire Advisor to support a more coordinated response to wildfires, alongside making sure emergency services have the resources they need to keep the public safe.”<\/p>\n Wildfires in Europe<\/p>\n Over in mainland Europe, the picture is equally bleak, with more than a million hectares<\/a>going up in flames in the EU so far this year.<\/p>\n This is four times as much land as last year, and equates to a surface area larger than the entirety of Corsica.<\/p>\n In total, more than 1,800 forest fires have been declared, emitting more than 38 million tonnes of CO\u2082. Out of the EU\u2019s 27 member states, only the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta have reported no wildfires in 2025. <\/p>\n Is climate change to blame?<\/p>\n “Many of the fires we have monitored and observed are occurring where climate anomalies show that it is much drier than average and warmer than average,” Mark Parrington, a scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather, told Euronews.<\/p>\n The expert warns that when hot, dry winds are blowing – ignition can spark \u201cvery quickly\u201d on a large scale and become \u201cvery intense\u201d.<\/p>\n Portugal and Spain both witnessed record-breaking wildfires <\/a>this summer, which accounted for over two-thirds of EU devastation, fuelled by temperatures above 40\u00b0C and strong winds. <\/p>\n These deadly blazes were around 40 times more likely due toclimate change<\/a>, research by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) found.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every fraction of a degree of warming, extreme, long-lasting heatwaves will continue to intensify, increasing the chance of huge wildfires like the ones that burned vast areas of the Iberian Peninsula,\u201d warns Dr Clair Barnes, researcher for the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n Is the EU spending enough money to tackle wildfires?<\/p>\n