What the Burnham government is doing
With the record heat and drought of recent summers, wildfire and water have become a cabinet-level concern under the Andy Burnham government — with water, the environment and climate all pulling in the same direction. During the 2022 heatwave, Environment Secretary George Eustace urged water companies to impose more hosepipe bans on 7 August 2022 [1]. The UK has no dedicated wildfire strategy or legislation — the country is not treated as a wildfire jurisdiction in the global policy literature[2].
The government’s response is spreading across three fronts. First, preparation and funding for rural fire response — 49 fire and rescue services in the UK (43 in England, 3 in Wales, 1 in Scotland, 1 in Northern Ireland)[3] — with no dedicated wildland fire unit and no standing aerial firefighting fleet. Second, water-security policy — the long game of keeping reservoirs and rivers healthy, investing in storage (10 new reservoirs under development to 2030, a £5bn investment) and treating drought as a permanent feature rather than a shock[4].
Third, the environmental portfolio. England’s ten major water companies are each required to hold a Drought Management Plan (legally required since the 2017 Water (Drought Management Plans) Regulations) [5]. With the environment and climate briefs under sustained political attention, the links between peat, water and fire are now explicitly part of the policy conversation — recognising that protecting the land is protecting the water, and that the water is what fights the fire. The Climate Change Act 2008 and Net Zero 2050 target provide the legislative spine[6].
- 01Fire readinessFunding and coordination for rural fire response, water access and early detection in the most exposed areas.
- 02Water securityInvestment in storage, treatment and drought resilience, treating the dry summer as the new normal.
- 03Land & peatPolicy that ties peat protection and rewetting to both the climate and the water cycle — the ground that holds the water.
The political question is no longer whether the UK will face fire and drought, but how much of the response is built now — and how much is left to the emergency.
The stakes — prevention policy versus crisis managementThe water behind the fire
A wildfire response is only as strong as the water behind it. The reservoirs, rivers and mains that feed our taps are the same network that supplies the fire service — and their state in a dry summer is now a matter of national interest. Thames Water alone maintains 22 raw water reservoirs and 241 underground service reservoirs[7]. During the 2022 drought, Yorkshire’s Thruscross reservoir fell so low it revealed the ruins of West End village, flooded in 1966[8].
When reservoirs run low, the choices get brutal. Operators must balance household demand, agriculture, industry and the emergency services from a shrinking pool. Groundwater provides approximately 30% of England’s public water supply [9], and water companies abstracted ~14,636 megalitres per day in 2023–24[10]. The reservoir policy debate — how much storage to build, how to price water in a drought, how to share the supply when it is short — is effectively a debate about how well the country can respond to the next major fire.
That is why water politics and fire politics are the same story. A government that underinvests in storage is a government that will be rationing water in the middle of a fire. And every household that uses water responsibly is, in effect, co-investing in the reservoir — keeping more of it available for the day it is needed most.
Your household is part of the grid
Water security is a shared system. The litres your household saves in a summer are not abstract — they are the same litres a fire crew would draw on. Individual water discipline is a collective safety measure.
What the BBC is telling us
The national newsroom has now made UK wildfire and water a recurring story — and the framing of that coverage is shaping the public’s sense of the risk. During the 2022 heatwave, the BBC reported the first-ever red extreme-heat warning, the 40.3°C record, the first hosepipe bans and the Met Office’s fire-weather warnings in real time[11].
The BBC has moved wildfire from a curiosity to a standing item: heatwave and fire-weather coverage in the dry summers, the first hosepipe bans, and the science of why the UK is becoming more fire-prone. Its reporting of the Met Office fire-weather data and the climate-attribution work has done a great deal to normalise the idea that this is a structural change, not a one-off. Right-leaning papers (The Sun, The Times) were criticised for downplaying the 2022 heatwave, and Extinction Rebellion smashed windows at The News Building on 19 July 2022 over climate coverage [12].
That coverage does the work that policy has to follow through on: it makes the risk visible, it explains the water link, and it puts pressure on the government to act. A public that sees the evidence is a public that will demand the infrastructure — the storage, the response, the peat protection — that the Burnham government is now being judged on.
- SeeThe risk made visibleStanding coverage of heat, drought and fire turns an abstract future threat into a present, named one.
- LinkThe water connectionReporting ties the fire risk to the same water system that supplies taps and fire crews.
- PushThe political pressureAn informed public is what forces prevention policy ahead of crisis management.
Fire and water are now one policy problem
The government, the reservoir operators and the newsroom have all converged on the same point: the UK must treat fire and water as a single, connected, long-term challenge. The gap that remains is between acknowledging the problem and paying for the solution — and that gap is exactly where individual responsibility for water use starts to matter.
- Prevention policy is being judged against the speed of the climate.
- Reservoir investment is the country’s fire insurance.
- Public awareness, built through coverage, is what makes the politics possible.