A new study led by the University of Cambridge has revealed that as our springs and summers get hotter and drier, the UK wildfire season is being stretched and intensified.
More fires, taking hold over more months of the year, are causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Fires on peatlands, which are carbon-rich, can almost double global fire-driven carbon emissions. Researchers found that despite accounting for only a quarter of the total UK land area that burns each year, dwarfed by moor and heathland, wildfires that burn peat have caused up to 90% of annual UK fire-driven carbon emissions since 2001 – with emissions spikes in particularly dry years.
Peat only burns when it’s hot and dry enough - conditions that are occurring more often with climate change. The peatlands of Saddleworth Moor in the Peak District, and Flow Country in northern Scotland, have both been affected by huge wildfires in recent years.
Unlike heather moorland which takes up to twenty years to regrow after a fire, burnt peat can take centuries to reaccumulate. The loss of this valuable carbon store makes the increasing wildfire frequency on peatlands a real cause for concern.
The researchers also calculated that carbon emissions from fires on UK peatland are likely to rise by at least 60% if the planet warms by 2oC.
The findings, which are broadly relevant to peatlands in temperate climates, are published today in the journal 'Environmental Research Letters'.
“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,” said Dr Adam Pellegrini in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, senior author of the study.
The research was funded by Wellcome, the Isaac Newton Trust and UKRI.
Read the full article:UK peatland fires are supercharging carbon emissions as climate change causes hotter, drier summers
Reference: Baker, S J et al: ‘Spikes in UK wildfire emissions driven by peatland fires in dry years.’ February 2025, Environmental Research Letters. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adafc6.
Image: Fire on UK moorland. Credit: Sarah Baker