Moorland Association challenges government wildfire science note

The Moorland Association has formally challenged a Government Office for Science briefing that links prescribed burning to greater wildfire risk, saying it presents contested claims “without adequately reflecting scientific uncertainty”. The note, published on 5 November, draws on a roundtable held on 10 August and chaired by Natural England’s chief scientist, Professor Sallie Bailey; the association says no fire and rescue service and no working upland land manager was in the room.

What does the science note say?

The briefing, titled Impacts of wildfires on UK biodiversity and natural capital, records the combined views of 14 participants from Natural England, the RSPB, the GWCT, the Forestry Commission and a group of universities, and states that it is not a statement of government policy. Among its conclusions are that drainage and prescribed burning in upland habitats “can favour dry-adapted species”, making habitat more susceptible to wildfire and “establishing a feedback loop”, that rewetting drained habitats will reduce their potential to ignite, and that peatland fires may account for up to 90% of UK fire-driven carbon emissions. It also notes that land abandonment creates sites with high fuel loads, that wetter winters are shrinking the window for vegetation management and that mixed grazing is linked to greater fire resilience.

The association’s case against it

Andrew Gilruth, chief executive of the Moorland Association, has written to the Government Office for Science, copying Professor Bailey and the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and has lodged a statutory information request for the roundtable record. The association cites a 2026 study by Ritson and colleagues describing a transition period of elevated fuel loads after burning stops, a northern England experiment in which both burning and cutting reduced heather dominance and fuel loads over five years, and a Scottish study that found 96% of wildfire area lay outside land managed by muirburn.

The same week the RSPB changed the title of a poster presented at the UK Wildfire Conference in Leeds on 10 and 11 November, after the association wrote to its chief executive, Beccy Speight, on 26 October asking for the evidence behind it. The poster had been titled “Prescribed burning increases wildfire severity in UK upland moorland”; it now reads “A comparison of wildfire severity on grouse-moor and non-grouse-moor upland moorland”. The RSPB’s chief operating officer, James Robinson, replied on 29 October that the research was well advanced but not yet published. The association said: “We welcome the change. But changing a title does not answer the questions about the evidence behind it.” It added that “a comparison is not proof of a cause” and asked the RSPB to account for the severity of this year’s fires on its own reserves at Dove Stone, Abernethy and Minsmere.

What happens next

The Government Office for Science has not published a response, and the EFRA Committee is awaiting the Government’s reply to its wildfire report, due by 21 December. In a written answer on 6 November, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 are managed by Defra with Natural England as a consultee on licence applications and fire and rescue services providing advice. The petition to restore controlled burning, launched by a land manager last week, remains open until 23 April 2027. The science note can be read in full on GOV.UK.