Arthur's Seat wildfire reminds us humans are the problem

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

Swimming off Portobello beach on Sunday, I saw the plume as it started to drift across the sea. Most likely, I thought, as I watched it darken the blue sky, a wildfire on Arthur's Seat. Later, I saw the giant cloud of beige and grey as I passed along the coast, and it felt like a reminder.
We may not know the exact cause, but it's humans who were the problem.
The latest Arthur's Seat blaze, as wildfires go, has been relatively small – we've had much bigger just this year at Carrbridge and Dava in the Highlands, earlier this summer, taking out 11,827 hectares. Nor is it the only one I can remember that has set Edinburgh's mini mountain alight.
None of this is entirely new. But it does serve the capital with a visible reminder of Scotland's wildfire risk, in a time increasing evidence is showing that climate change is set to bring more of it.
Above all, it flags up that here in Scotland we need to change our approach to fire. Flames and sparks, disposable and portable barbecues, campfires even, should all be given a miss in areas of even the remotest risk on dry summer days - and we all need to spread that message.
Earlier this year, a wildfire at Glenfinglas in the Trossachs, was sparked by a disposable barbecue. The grill was even found, post blaze, with a charred burger still atop. The Arthur's Seat fire was said to be likely due to "human activity".
So, yes, it's increasingly clear that one of the things we are going to have to change in Scotland, is the assumption that we live in a cool enough country not to have to worry about, and that a hot day is a disposable barbecue day. This isn't a new idea. In England an MP has called for a ban on disposable barbecues, and even back in 2022 some supermarkets stopped selling them.
We hear, of course, of worse fires elsewhere in the world, and a European wave of them is well underway. A giant blaze on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Italy has led to the closure of tourist trails has destroyed hundreds of hectares of woodland and killing wild animals.
Last week, France was hit by its biggest wildfire since 1949. A fire that burned 15,000 hectares of the Southern Aude region, killing one person and injuring several others, was described by France's Prime Minister as a "catastrophe on an unprecedented scale". In Turkey wildfires have raged in the centre of the northwestern province of Canakkale. Firefighters worked last night to contain a blaze just north of Madrid.
And, of course, it's not only Europe. There's Canada, where the 2025 fire season is already the second-worst on record, with more than 470 fires across the country currently classified as 'out of control' and over 7 million hectares of land burned to date, in the third year in the row in which Canada's fire season has seen fire activity well above average.
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Some may say it's not climate-change. We've always had wildfires. Or even that they cause less destruction than they once did.
But there's no doubting that temperature, drought, and strong winds are all factors in wildfires, and these are all increasing with climate change. Records on temperatures are being broken. In southern France, for instance, they were broken at four eweather stations, including Bordeaux (41.6C). Cognac, Bergerac and Saint Girons.
Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record. In the first half of this year, the the average temperature in western Europe was 2.81C above the 1991-2020 average.
What's clear is that Europe, and in particular Western Europe, is developing a heat problem. We in Scotland might not hit temperatures in the 40s – just a more comfortable 32C in Aviemore last month according to the Met Office – but the heat is rising. Just because we at its much cooler and northerly end doesn't mean climate change does not exist and that we do not need to grapple with it.
Wildfires have multiple impacts – damage to property, the costs of firefighting, the loss of wildlife – but one of the most worrying is the way they act in a feedback loop to themselves increase greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
(Image: Derek McArthur) That's a real concern in Scotland, where, we have the kind of carbon rich peatlands, which when burned release their carbon.
A study by researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that the wildfire season is becoming longer and more intense – and that the burning of peatland, though just 25% of burned land, results in 90% of annual UK fire-driven carbon emissions.
It said 'the emergence of a new fire season was the largest in Scotland (where peatlands comprise ∼23% of land-area. Given that Scotland comprises ∼45% of the total UK burned area, the lengthening of the fire season is important.'
Shallow carbon-rich soils like we have on the Peatland hills are prone to moisture loss and therefore at risk of wildfire.
And as the planet gets warmer the problem is only likely to get worse. A 2C rise, it said could result in carbon emissions from fires on UK peatland rising by at least 60 per cent.
Wildfires also affect how we look at other issues around how we tackle the climate crisis and one of these is the carbon credit market, which is chiefly based around trees and peat
Wildfires also, as a recent article in sustainability journal, Edie, recently put it, stand to have an impact on carbon credits widely being developed as the basis for investment in peatland and woodland restoration via the peatland and woodland carbon codes.
'Taking carbon credits as an example, wildfires will factor-in in several ways,' says Rod Taylor, Director of Forests and Nature Conservation at the World Resources Institute, in the article. 'If the project fails to control wildfires during the crediting period, it will either be unable to issue any credits or will issue less credits due to the carbon impact of the fires.'
The world is changing. Are we prepared for what our summers will bring – and not just wildfires? Jellyfish swarms caused the shutdown of a nuclear power station in France and, Iraq, whose electricity system is chiefly driven by oil and gas, just had a national power outage due to high temperatures. But globally and locally we are not fast to change our behaviour. It's time we observed the signs.