“In the end, the response capacity is limited,” said Juan Caamaño, head of training at the Pau Costa Foundation.
UK Faces New Fire Reality
In the UK, wildfires have broken out from cities to national parks after a scorchingly hot start to summer.
A blaze in east London drew about 125 firefighters after a falling tree hit power cables.
“One of the alarming things I was seeing over the weekend was large parts of the country where the probability of sustained ignition was 100%,” said Dr. Thomas Smith, a wildfire scientist at the London School of Economics.
For grass fuels, which dry out quickly, only 2-3 weeks of dry weather can reach critical thresholds.
The climate of the 20th century is now gone, UK scientists said, as fire services fought blazes from Durham to Devon.
“Simultaneous wildfires place enormous pressure on emergency services,” said Dr. Maria Barbosa, a wildfire scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Fire agencies depend on moving personnel and equipment between regions.
The shift from fighting all fires to picking battles is new for northern European countries, though not for the Mediterranean.
“They’re having to change tactics when they fight fires, while we’re really struggling with strategic decisions,” Smith said.
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Fresh in London firefighters’ memories is the 2022 wildfire that destroyed 18 houses in Wennington village during a heatwave.
The London fire brigade has since bought all-terrain support vehicles to reach places fire engines cannot.
