Whitby has been ranked in the top ten per cent of UK parliamentary constituencies most at risk of deadly wildfire.
The Moorland Association has compiled a league table of the UK’s 650 constituencies and where they place in terms of risk. Scarborough and Whitby is listed as 45th.
Rankings have been based on ten criteria including the amount of vegetation, exposure, its proximity to homes and the difficulty of evacuating people.
The Moorland Association (MA) has submitted the document to The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) after it put out a call for evidence last month as part of its long-term inquiry into Climate and Weather Resilience.
Whitby and Scarborough’s place, in the top seven percent of at risk areas, comes as consequences of the Langdale/Fylingdales Moor fire are still being felt.
The North York Moors burned for more than 40 days last summer when the fire – confirmed to have been started by cooking using a naked flame, campfire or gas burner – raged across ten square miles near Sneaton.
The fires were tackled by local full-time, part-time and voluntary fire crews as well as local farmers and game-keepers.
As they risked their lives, day and night for days on end, local residents and businesses did what they could by donating food and drinks, as well as more than £70,000 in a CrowdFunder campaign.
The government inquiry is also seeking information specific to wildfires.
The inquiry will explore the effectiveness of national strategies, adequacy of current systems to protect people, places and nature and the government’s capacity to respond to and recover from major emergencies which cause environmental damage.
The capacity of local authorities, emergency services, and communities to prepare for and deal with events like wild fire will also come under scrutiny.
The chief officer of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has previously said resources need to change to tackle the growing issue of wildfires in the region.
Speaking at a public meeting in Whitby earlier this year, Jonathan Dyson, said the service is reviewing and strengthening wildfire provision, increasing numbers of specialist wildfire teams, enhancing equipment, vehicles and protective clothing, and putting formal agreements in place with partner organisations for major incident support.
Andrew Gilruth, chief executive of the MA told The Anchor, the risk surrounding our area is “complicated”.
He said: “From a local perspective, the risk we face around Scarborough and Whitby is a series of complicated factors, some of which we cannot change.
“We can’t change the housing or the roads or footpaths really. Some factors would take a huge amount to adjust. Getting more fire-fighters is possible but will take more time and somebody has to pay for that.
“What we can do whilst we start looking at the medium to long term, keeps coming back to listening to farmers and gamekeepers, listening to the Fire and Rescue service and what they said after the Langdale and Fylingdales fire.
“Why won’t we let them manage the fuel load and keep the risk down? They had to dig a 29km motorway to create a trench to stop that fire from spreading – that is not good enough.
“For generations farmers and gamekeepers did all this for free and didn’t send a bill to the tax payer. Now we live in a world where officials with clipboards are stopping them from doing what they have done for generations.”
Written submissions on wildfire management are being invited from affected communities, local authorities and emergency services, industry representatives, environmental and cultural bodies, academics and members of the public.
EFRA had set a deadline of this Friday for responses but has extended it to Monday May 18 at 12pm – after recognising many of the people it wants to hear from are currently out fighting wildfires.
The government department says that last year, wildfires burned the largest recorded area of land since monitoring began in 2012, and more than double the area affected during the previous record-breaking year of 2022.
Climate change means wildfires are now six times more likely than they used to be, with EFRA arguing wildfires happen more in spring than summer due to burning of vegetation by landowners, dry and dead vegetation left from winter and visitor pressures.
EFRA Committee Chair Alistair Carmichael said: “From Northumberland to London, fears of wildfires are spreading as records are broken year on year.
“The wheels of Government turn slowly, so it is essential ministers get to work now on developing reliable systems that can meet these growing threats.
“We want to hear from experts in this field and organisations who care for their landscapes, as well as public services who face wildfires annually and have tools and strategies to prevent and contain them.
“With so many local and national organisations with a role to play, it is paramount that we have clear lines of responsibility and joined-up thinking.”
The committee is also going to be looking at how other countries prepare and mitigate wildfire risks to people, property, plant and animal life.
Other research by the MA estimates the average cost of a UK wildfire is £10,000 per hectare when all impacts are accounted for.
This includes costs of fire-fighting and emergency response, damage to land and wildlife, health impacts from smoke pollution, restoration of infrastructure and lost income to farms and tourism.
With 10 square miles equivalent to around 2,590 hectares, this puts the cost of damage of last summer’s fires near Whitby at £25.9m, the campaign group added.
