New research, undertaken by the universities of Cambridge and Exeter, along with the Met Office, has exposed the increasing threat of wildfires to the UK.
They have found that not only are there more fires each year but the window in which these fires are likely to happen is growing dramatically.
Between 2011 and 2016, the UK’s fire season lasted between one and four months. In the subsequent five years this grew to somewhere between six and nine months.
While the research highlighted the increasing threat of wildfires per se, its particular focus was peatland fires, which has considerable environmental implications.
All wildfires release CO2 into the atmosphere but to an extent, this is drawn back when the land recovers and the burnt grasses and plants grow back. This is not the case with peatland. When heather, for example, burns, it can regrow in up to 20 years. Peat on the other hand can take centuries to recover.
Peat makes up only a quarter of the UK land that suffers from wildfires each year but since 2001, those fires are calculated to have been responsible for up to 90% of all wildfire carbon emissions.
Significantly, most of of these emissions happened in years that were warmer and drier than usual as peat is less likely to burn in less extreme conditions.
Peatland covers 9% of the UK and removes over three million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. However, between 2001 and 2021it is thought that 800,000 tonnes of carbon were emitted from peatland fires.
Dr Adam Pellegrini from the University of Cambridge who was co-author of the paper said: ‘We found that peatland fires are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of the carbon emissions caused by UK wildfires, which we project will increase even more with climate change.’
The researchers believe that a 2°C rise in global temperature would see carbon emissions from peatland fires in the UK rise by at least 60%.
Lead author Dr Sarah Baker, from the University of Exeter, said: ‘A range of strategies will be needed to mitigate the severe effects of wildfire in peatland areas including managing the types and amount of vegetation on the landscape and taking a holistic approach to ecosystem restoration.’
Co-author Professor Richard Betts, of the University of Exeter and the Met Office, said: ‘Climate change threatens UK peatlands through escalating fire risk, and the resulting emissions would add to the problem and make it harder to limit global warming to low levels. This underscores the urgency of both cutting emissions from fossil fuel burning and taking action to make peatlands more resilient.’
The full study can be read here.