Call for permanent wildfire-fighting aircraft in Scotland
The devastating damage caused by wildfires in the Cairngorms has exposed major gaps in Scotland’s strategy and resources, across both Scotland and the UK, say the Scottish Greens.
In a letter to the First Minister and his Cabinet colleagues, the party’s rural affairs spokesperson, Ariane Burgess, has called for Scotland to have publicly available firefighting aircraft during the wildfire season, rather than relying on private operators.
At present, aerial firefighting relies on a small number of privately owned helicopters carrying underslung buckets of limited capacity, typically able to lift only around 1,000 litres of water in a single load. These helicopters must then fly to a loch or reservoir, hover to fill the bucket, and return to the fire.
The lack of specialist helicopters to provide an aerial firefighting capability has undermined operations in the Cairngorms, with neither the Scottish nor UK governments currently possessing aerial firefighting assets stationed within the UK.
Last year's fire at Dava Moor and Carrbridge, the largest wildfire in Scottish history, was also exacerbated by a lack of available helicopters.
Ariane said:
“The devastating fires in the Cairngorms have shown that Scotland cannot continue to rely on a patchwork of private operators and borrowed resources when wildfires are spreading rapidly across some of our most precious landscapes.
“We need a permanent, publicly available aerial firefighting capability based here in Scotland, with specialist aircraft and crews ready to respond during the wildfire season.
“Climate change is making extreme wildfire conditions more intense and more common, yet our firefighting resources have not kept pace with the scale of the threat.
“There is a vast cost from these wildfires, not just in terms of the huge financial impact but also the damage being done to our ecosystem and the huge risk that it creates for local people and the firefighters who have put their lives and long-term health on the line to protect us.
“The Scottish and UK governments must work together to ensure that we are not in this same position next year and that Scotland has the equipment and capacity needed to protect communities, wildlife and our natural environment.
“We cannot wait for the next major wildfire to expose the same gaps again.”