{"id":689243,"date":"2026-07-13T12:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689243\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T12:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:40:09","slug":"wildfires-burn-in-wales-and-england-as-environment-officials-warn-of-exceptional-risk-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689243\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires burn in Wales and England as environment officials warn of \u2018exceptional risk\u2019 | Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

People have been evacuated from their homes after a wildfire swept across a mountainside in north Wales<\/a>, prompting firefighters to declare a major incident.<\/p>\n

Residents described hearing the crackling fire advancing down Conwy Mountain towards homes as ash fell from a sky turned dark by thick smoke.<\/p>\n

A second major incident was declared in Derbyshire, where fire chiefs said they were working to protect homes, infrastructure and wildlife.<\/p>\n

Wildfires have also burned in places including County Durham, Greater Manchester, East Sussex, West Sussex, Devon, Somerset and London over the last few days.<\/p>\n

Natural England said there remained an \u201cexceptional fire risk\u201d in pockets of southern Britain and a \u201cvery high\u201d risk for much of England and Wales. A combination of continuing hot weather and high winds is making it hard to tackle the wildfires currently ablaze and increasing the risk of more starting.<\/p>\n

North Wales fire and rescue service was called to Conwy Mountain in the early hours of Sunday and declared a major incident later that day. It said \u201chundreds of acres\u201d of land were affected, and that at one point the front of the fire measured almost a mile across.<\/p>\n

A map showing the locations of fires west of Conwy, close to the Irish Sea<\/a><\/p>\n

The fire service said the steep terrain made it hard to contain the blaze, which was whipped by strong winds.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson asked people to avoid the area. \u201cLocal residents should keep windows and doors closed if affected by smoke. Everyone close to the Conwy Mountain who needed to evacuate has been contacted and supported through this process.\u201d<\/p>\n

One resident, Ben Campbell, fled with his wife, Michelle, and their three sons from Capelulo as the fire neared their home. He told the BBC: \u201cThe sound was worse than anything. It was so loud, the crackling. You could hear it coming down the mountain.\u201d Another said she had felt helpless and scared as she was evacuated from her home.<\/p>\n

Derbyshire fire and rescue service (DFRS) said there was a \u201clarge scale wildfire\u201d at Tintwistle Moor caused by \u201ctinder dry\u201d ground. The operation to douse the flames included dropping water from helicopters.<\/p>\n

Ellie Gillatt, a DFRS area manager, said: \u201cFirefighters continue to face challenging conditions as they work to tackle the wildfire and protect the surrounding infrastructure and environment. This remains a significant and complex incident. DFRS has deployed multiple fire appliances and specialist wildfire resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Extra firefighters from neighbouring services were called in to help, along with mountain rescue teams and the police.<\/p>\n

Greater Manchester fire and rescue service was called to a moorland fire near Dovestone Reservoir. A spokesperson said: \u201cDue to strong winds, smoke from the fire travelled significant distances, with people reporting haze and the smell of smoke as far as Manchester city centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Walthamstow, east London, 125 firefighters tackled a blaze that affected a house, gardens and sheds and a railway embankment<\/a>. Some residents were evacuated and two rest centres were set up. The cause of the fire is under investigation.<\/p>\n

About 50 firefighters from London fire brigade also fought a wildfire in Orpington in the south-east of the capital. The fire service said several acres of grass were alight across two fields.<\/p>\n

Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said last week that the climate crisis was making every heatwave hotter<\/a>, with events such as this month\u2019s heatwave more likely to occur.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heat we have seen this summer is only possible because of the 1.4C of climate change we have to date, due to the burning of fossil fuels,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Otto said it was misleading to use the term \u201cnew normal\u201d when describing this year\u2019s scorching summer heat. \u201cThe climate we have today is not stable and continues to warm as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels. As a result, what is \u2018normal\u2019 keeps shifting and we\u2019re likely to see much hotter heatwaves like this one in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People have been evacuated from their homes after a wildfire swept across a mountainside in north Wales, prompting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}