Military planes and helicopters will be drafted in to tackle wildfires, Prime Minister Andy Burnham is to tell the UK’s first summit on the issue. Civilian fire services in all four nations will be able to request the support of the Royal Air Force’s Chinook helicopters and A400M planes to fight wildfires on tough terrain such as remote moorland and steep hillsides. Burnham said the measures were needed because “we cannot put people through another summer like this one”. The government will host its first “wildfire resilience summit” on Friday to discuss how to prevent, respond to and recover from such blazes after a record-breaking summer 2026.
There have been 1,350 wildfires in England and Wales this year, an all-time high and up by more than 300 on last year and more than 1,000 on 2024, according to figures from the National Fire Chiefs Council. Records for the number of reported wildfires were also broken in 2022 and 2025 – but the UK’s Climate Change Committee has warned the risk will rise in the coming decades. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said this was the first time the RAF’s Chinooks and the four-engine A400Ms were being equipped to tackle wildfires. Some areas struggled with no air assistance in the summer.
RAF Chinook crews have already helped respond, external to wildfires in Cyprus. In addition to military aircraft, the government said it would also spend £45m on wildfire-specific personal protective equipment for firefighters on the ground. It is lighter than current firefighting equipment which is designed for fires in buildings and not meant to be worn for a long time, the government added. Ministers are also pledging a £25m scheme from April 2027 to April 2029 to restore dried-out peatlands in England so they are natural firebreaks, and financial support for farmers to fireproof their land such as by digging ponds.
“The government will also look at tougher local restrictions or product bans to stop people starting fires when the risk is high,” a briefing ahead of the summit said, following a temporary ban on disposable BBQs. Burnham will meet fire chiefs, local leaders and experts from tech companies at the summit. “I stood in Stourbridge and watched families lose everything,” he said on Thursday, recounting the night of a wildfire that destroyed 19 homes in the West Midlands in August. “I will never forget it.
Our firefighters were heroes that day, but heroes shouldn’t have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.” Earlier this month, MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said there were weaknesses in the UK’s wildfire preparedness, including access to aerial firefighting resources, securing water supplies during major incidents and coordinating resources at a national level. MPs said the current system for obtaining aerial firefighting support was “no longer fit for purpose”. At the summit, a “Wildfires AI Unit” will be announced to combine universities, tech firms and officials on the Cobra emergency committee, along with Met Office wildfire forecasts and closer work with devolved governments. In August, the government convened a Cobra meeting before sending an emergency alert to millions of phones across England and Wales – which sparked a backlash from some.
Summer 2026 was the UK’s hottest on record, according to the Met Office. In a study on how this summer was impacted by human-induced climate change, it said the heat experienced was made 130 times more likely. “The wildfires that tore through our countryside this summer showed the urgent need to adapt to our changing climate,” Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle said ahead of the summit. “Nature is our greatest ally in preventing wildfires starting in the first place,” she added.
Major incidents were declared for wildfires this year in areas such as Dunwich Heath and RSPB Minsmere in Suffolk, the Cairngorms, Hampshire and Holme Fen in Cambridgeshire. Firefighters and public ‘knowingly put at risk’ during summer wildfires Wildfires are UK’s ‘new reality’, MPs warn Lives ‘will be lost’ unless UK does more to combat wildfires, committee chairwoman says
