Wildfire Risk and Resilience in Woodlands and Peatlands

Summary Description:

Climate change with warmer, drier conditions is a driver of increasing wildfire risk and estimated to increase the risk, timing and severity of wildfires in the country. The UK Climate Change Committee’s adaptation progress report (2025) highlights that the evidence is now unequivocal: climate change is creating extreme weather conditions in the UK, and wildfires are becoming both more likely and more extreme.

Reported incidents highlight this increasing pressure, with woodland fires rising from approximately 2,400 in 2009–10 to around 9,000 in 2015–16 in Great Britain, with almost half of UK wildfires occurring in Scotland.

In Scotland, expanding forest cover and increasing investment in natural capital create a more continuous and heterogeneous fuel landscape, with young trees being particularly vulnerable.  Fuel types vary across the landscape, and fire spreads across those boundaries; conditions in one area, like drained or degraded peat, can increase ignition risk and fire intensity in adjacent woodlands, and vice versa. However, this is also true in terms of the effects of wildfire mitigation actions, such as grazing or firebreaks.

This 48-month PhD studentship will support efforts to improve the application of existing quantitative modelling tools and approaches in a UK-context. This will allow a demonstration of modelled reductions in the risk and extent of wildfires, as a result of planned interventions – particularly in peaty areas, where fires can result in significant carbon emissions and long-term ecosystem damage.