The brigade also encourages natural fire breaks by cutting grass near homes, ploughing land, and clearing dead leaves.
Such advice is more pertinent as firefighter numbers have fallen.
“This is only going to get worse, and the government has to get a handle on it,” said Steve Wright, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union.
Staffing cuts have left 12,000 fewer firefighters in the UK than in 2010, delaying response and allowing more fires to grow out of control.
Global fire seasons in North America and Australia are getting longer and increasingly coincide, hampering arrangements to share aircraft and firefighters.
The overlap is expected to increase significantly by 2050.
Climate breakdown is the main driver, but natural variation like El Niño makes it worse.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology noted the emerging El Niño could be the strongest on record, potentially leading to some of Australia’s hottest and driest years.
Are governments taking the threat seriously?
“The climate emergency kills,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, emphasizing that all levels of government must rise to the challenge.
Yet policies to cut carbon pollution fall far short of what is needed to stop the planet from heating 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Efforts to use controlled burns to prevent mega-fires are still considered novel in many countries, except Canada and Australia, which have incorporated Indigenous fire strategies.
In Europe, the cultural shift among firefighters has begun to trickle into policy.
EU member states approved a non-binding strategy to manage wildfire risk that encourages prescribed burning and manual brush clearing.
Its civil protection mechanism, allowing member states to request firefighting support from neighbours, was increased by pre-emptive deployments.
But in 2025, record-breaking wildfires that charred 1 million hectares led to more requests for help than ever before.
While the mechanism worked, teams were deployed in extreme situations they had never seen.
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“I have the feeling that we’re always behind the emergency,” Caamaño said. “And it is the emergency that governs us, rather than us governing the emergency.”
