In August 2026 a vehicle caught fire on the A31 at the edge of the New Forest. The flames spread from the road into the heath, and by the time it was out it had burned through more than 100 hectares. Hampshire Fire and Rescue put over 120 firefighters on it, in brutal heat and awful terrain, and stayed for two weeks, pumping more than 85 million litres of water onto the ground to stop it. That is the scale of what starts small and gets away, and the crews who deal with it deserve enormous credit.
Most wildfires here are not started by lightning. They are started by people, and almost always by accident. Which is the good news, because it means most of them are preventable, and a big part of that is down to us, the people out walking the ground that burns.
Why this matters
Heath, moor and dry grassland are tinder. In a dry spell the vegetation and the peaty ground underneath it will take a spark and run with it, fast, and once it is into the ground it is extraordinarily hard to put out. The Dorset and Purbeck heaths, the New Forest and the Surrey heaths are some of the most fire-prone ground in the country, and they are also rare wildlife habitat that takes decades to recover. A careless afternoon can undo a very long time.
And when one gets away, the cost lands on people and things that did nothing to deserve it: families who lose homes, sometimes lives, the crews who walk towards the fire while everyone else runs, and the wildlife and habitat that cannot outrun it and takes decades to come back, if it ever does. You do not have to be an environmentalist to want to avoid being the cause of that. You just have to love being outdoors.
None of this means stop enjoying it. It means enjoy it without being the reason a fire engine turns out.
How not to start one
The big ones are simple, and I hold to them completely.
No barbecues. Especially not disposable ones. It is not something I would ever do or ever recommend on open countryside. They stay hot long after you think they are out, they get tipped into dry grass, and they are behind a huge number of heath fires. Leave them for the garden.
No open fires. A campfire on dry heath is playing with something you cannot control. Fires are only permitted in certain places at certain times, usually a designated fire pit on a managed site, so if you did not arrive somewhere that clearly allows it, the answer is no.
Put cigarettes out properly. I do not smoke, but if you do, know that dropping a cigarette and standing on it does not put it out, it just hides it in the vegetation still smouldering. Extinguish it fully, and take the butt home. A single flicked cigarette has started fires that burned for days.
Make sure everything is cold, not just out. This is the one people miss. Residual heat in a stove, a disposable BBQ, or ash from anything can reignite hours later once you have gone. If it is even warm, it is not finished.
Mind your vehicle. The New Forest fire started with a vehicle, and hot exhausts and catalytic converters parked over long dry grass are a genuine ignition source. Park on hard ground, not the verge.
Take your glass and litter home. Beyond the obvious, glass left in sun can, in the wrong conditions, focus light and start a fire. It has happened. Leave nothing behind.
The simplest advice of all
Here is my honest take, and the thing I actually do. In the hot, dry months, take a picnic and an iced coffee. It is easier, it is less faff, and it removes the risk entirely. There is no flame to get away from you, nothing to extinguish, and nothing to check twice before you leave. On a warm day that is genuinely the nicer option anyway.
I love a hot coffee on the hill, and in the cold and wet months I will carry a small, controllable gas stove and make one. A gas stove is a controlled heat source, significantly lower-risk than a BBQ or an open fire, and it is often allowed where those two are banned. But it is not a free pass. When wildfire risk is high or extreme, even stoves get prohibited, Forestry England banned all stoves on New Forest sites during the worst of it, so the rule is: check the current local rules first, use it only on stable, bare, non-combustible ground well away from any vegetation, and if the ground is tinder-dry, just do not. That is exactly why, in high summer, the flask of iced coffee wins.
If you spot a fire
Do not try to be a hero with a spreading fire, it moves faster than you think and the smoke alone can overcome you.
- Call 999 and ask for the fire service. Do it early, a small fire reported fast is a very different job to a large one found late.
- Give your location precisely. A what3words reference or an OS grid reference gets crews to the exact spot, which on open heath with few landmarks is not easy otherwise.
- Move away from it, and warn anyone else nearby as you go.
- Only tackle a genuinely tiny fire, a dropped disposable BBQ you can stamp and drown, if you can do it safely and it is not spreading. If in any doubt, leave it and call.
If you are caught in one
Rare, but worth knowing. Fire spreads fastest uphill and downwind, so do not try to outrun it going up.
- Move downhill and downwind, away from the fire, towards a road, a track, ploughed or bare ground, or open water, anything that will not burn.
- Do not try to cross in front of a fast-moving fire. Get around it, not through it.
- Call 999 as soon as you are moving, and keep low if there is heavy smoke.
- Once you are safe, warn others and let the crews do their job.
Check the official guidance
One important thing: this is practical advice from a walker, not official rules, and the rules change with the conditions and the place. Before a walk in a dry spell, take two minutes to check.
- The Met Office Fire Severity Index tells you how dangerous conditions are right now.
- Fire safety outdoors (gov.uk) and your local fire and rescue service carry the current advice and any warnings.
- The landowner sets the rules that count on the day. Forestry England manages the New Forest and much of the forest and heath you will walk, and publishes its current fire rules and any restrictions, so it is the one to check first. The National Trust and your National Park do the same for their ground.
Follow the local signage and any temporary bans without exception. They are there because the ground is genuinely dangerous.
Useful links
For the current rules, the risk level, and proper safety advice, these are the ones to check:
- British Red Cross: wildfire safety, clear advice on staying safe before, during and after a wildfire.
- Met Office Fire Severity Index, how dangerous conditions are right now.
- Fire safety outdoors (gov.uk), the official outdoor fire-safety guidance.
- Forestry England, the rules and any restrictions for the New Forest and the forests and heaths they manage.
- Your local fire and rescue service and National Park, for area-specific warnings and temporary bans.