Firefighters have been battling a vast wildfire in the hills above , spreading across more than 4,000 hectares, for three weeks.
Around were called in to support exhausted fire crews as more fires broke out across the south Wales valleys. Smoke from Blaenavon could be seen from Cardiff and Gloucestershire.
We cannot stop all such . But it’s possible to make our landscapes more resilient to them – by restoring and recreating a natural habitat we have spent centuries doing our best to remove: wetlands.
Over 75% of the UK’s bogs, fens, marshes and other wetlands have been dug up, , stripping the landscape of much of its natural ability . Restoring them would keep soils and vegetation wetter, providing less fuel for flames. could also form natural breaks that slow fires before they reach homes, forests or farmland.
This is becoming increasingly important. Across England and Wales this summer, firefighters had already responded to , including 458 during July alone.
Many of the upland areas affected by wildfires are peatlands, or bogs, but that does not mean they are still functioning as healthy wetlands. In a healthy bog, waterlogged conditions prevent dead plants from fully decomposing, so their remains slowly accumulate as peat, rather like a giant inefficient compost heap. Where bogs have been drained, as many have been for generations, the water table falls and the , creating more fuel during prolonged hot weather.
If flames reach the peat, they can and reappear elsewhere, making the fire extremely difficult to extinguish. This was one of the problems faced by firefighters at Blaenavon.
How to create more wetlands
Creating more wetlands does not mean indiscriminately flooding productive farmland or turning every hillside into a bog. In many places, it can mean restoring wetlands which existed before people drained or damaged them.
On degraded peatlands, old drainage ditches and eroded gullies can be or banks known as bunds. Bare peat can be stabilised and replanted, while sphagnum moss can be reintroduced.
Sphagnum is the great ecosystem engineer of a healthy bog. It can hold of its own weight in water, helping keep the ground wet, creating the conditions in which more peat can form and helping .
Wetlands can also be created by reconnecting rivers to their floodplains, restoring wet woodland and bringing back ponds, marshes and shallow pools. The principle is simple: instead of draining water away from our landscape as quickly as possible, retain some of it where it naturally belongs.
A useful example can be found on , north of Manchester. Around 3,000 crescent-shaped were created there in 2021, followed by another 700 in 2024.
These shallow pools were dug into flatter areas of peat using low-impact excavators. They catch rain which would otherwise rush off the hillside. Within five years, many of the original bunds contained sphagnum and were beginning to resemble natural bog pools. Monitoring during the suggested that the bunded areas remained wetter for longer than unrestored peat.
Creating new peat and fully restoring the ecosystem will take decades or even centuries. But the benefit most relevant to wildfires, keeping more water in the landscape, can begin to help within a few years.
There is also evidence of restoration helping during an actual fire. At , a wildfire swept through forestry in June 2018 but stopped when it reached recently restored peatland, where the water table had been raised and the ground and vegetation were wetter.
Projects like this need to be repeated across Britain’s degraded wetlands, particularly where they lie close to communities, forestry or other areas at high risk from wildfire. Restoration should be targeted to create wetter, more , helping to slow fires and stop them from becoming major incidents.
This summer has highlighted that as our climate becomes hotter and less predictable, restoring our natural wet defences has to become a central part of the UK’s wildfire strategy.
We cannot make Britain fireproof. But by restoring wetlands we can make it more fire-resilient.