An article in The Guardian about the deployment of ‘Australian style’ wildfire warning signs in the Peak District and Pennines.
Permission to have an opinion ?
1 For the lay-person it’s difficult to interpret and the sign sited at Owler Bar also represents a potential driving risk (reading it whilst going round a weirdly shaped ‘roundabout’)
2 Whatever the sign is about – the dial shows the ‘thing’ only being 3/4 of a concern. It really really isn’t.
3 Rangers, firefighters and meteorologists work off a scale called the @defrauk Fire Severity Index (FSI) … and for where that sign (that currently reads ‘Extreme’) is, the current FSI reading is ‘Very High’
4 If the fire risk per the FSI goes to Extreme then a whole load of extreme measures about limiting access and closing some PROWs come in to play and land owners can also close CROW land.
5 I think using 2 scales of reference confuses the issue.
6 Just use words. Big massive ones.
7 Impose a temporary (?) seasonal (?) Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) across land susceptible to wildfire
8 Appropriately resource the police to impose significant fines for breaching the aforementioned PSPO. Extend that provision to rangers where necessary.
9 I’ve written previously about three very pertinent points; a) the very significant rise of visitor numbers and the commensurate very significant reduction in funding (some imposed and some elective) for those in the front line of education and engagement around responsible recreation in the countryside b) major land managing and land owning organisations imposing ‘non engagement’ clauses on their rangers around the subject of fire and BBQs depletes resources and confuses the narrative, and c) nothing will provoke top down change to the appropriately resourced preparedness for and response to wildfire in the UK until deaths and devastation are commonplace (have a read of the Bill that Rep. Boebert introduced in the USA in 2021 – the ‘Comprehensive Bill to Prevent Catastrophic Wildfires’ – for an example of decisive political action.
10 In my lived experience the most serious damage to wildlife and livestock in the Peak District National Park in wildfire season isn’t wildfire, it’s dogs off leads.
Photo @guardian
