‘In record 40C heat on 19 July 2022, 18 homes were lost in village of Wennington – a signal for firefighters to adapt, but UK response remains fragmented.
In total, 70 houses were destroyed across the UK that day in a record 600 wildfires – the largest loss of British housing to a threat previously assumed to be more relevant to California or southern Europe, and evidence of the worsening climate crisis.
Wennington’s fire was one of dozens that erupted in a great ring encircling the city, a scenario far beyond anything in the London fire brigade’s (LFB) experience. The brigade, one of the world’s largest, ran out of fire engines, deploying all 142 of them, and the log records incident commanders making desperate appeals for more crews, hoses and water that could not be met.
At senior levels, the brigade had realised that higher temperatures caused by the climate crisis would make wildfires more likely and that some would cross the “rural-urban interface” to burn houses. But the unprecedented events of 19 July 2022 showed the scale of the new threat faced by a brigade largely unfamiliar with wildfires.
“We’re London, we’re urban, we don’t do fields,” a senior officer said after the fires.‘
1 Comment
From the article:
‘In record 40C heat on 19 July 2022, 18 homes were lost in village of Wennington – a signal for firefighters to adapt, but UK response remains fragmented.
In total, 70 houses were destroyed across the UK that day in a record 600 wildfires – the largest loss of British housing to a threat previously assumed to be more relevant to California or southern Europe, and evidence of the worsening climate crisis.
Wennington’s fire was one of dozens that erupted in a great ring encircling the city, a scenario far beyond anything in the London fire brigade’s (LFB) experience. The brigade, one of the world’s largest, ran out of fire engines, deploying all 142 of them, and the log records incident commanders making desperate appeals for more crews, hoses and water that could not be met.
At senior levels, the brigade had realised that higher temperatures caused by the climate crisis would make wildfires more likely and that some would cross the “rural-urban interface” to burn houses. But the unprecedented events of 19 July 2022 showed the scale of the new threat faced by a brigade largely unfamiliar with wildfires.
“We’re London, we’re urban, we don’t do fields,” a senior officer said after the fires.‘