Fire services don’t have the basic equipment, training or resources they need to cope with soaring wildfire numbers, according to FOI requests submitted by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).
· Fire crews are being sent to tackle wildfires without proper protective gear or training, Freedom of Information requests submitted by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) reveal.
· Crew shortages are also taking engines off the road, with some services unable to respond to blazes for more than a third of the year. During several of this summer’s biggest wildfires, nearby stations were out of action when needed most.
· The CLA is calling for urgent reform and funding to help fire-fighters keep pace as wildfires reach record highs.
The CLA approached 47 fire services in England and Wales. In total, 29 responded. The findings show:
· Basic kit missing: Over half (12/22) fire services have no wildfire PPE and a third of stations have zero drones, despite how critical they are in allowing crews to safely track, monitor and tackle blazes.
· Record blazes: 77% of councils recorded more wildfires in the first half of 2026 than they did in the entirety of 2024. And in Berkshire and Shropshire, wildfires hit a five-year record in just the first six months of 2026.
· Limited training: In Cheshire just 8% of employees are trained to under-take wildfire training, and most of what training exists is done online, not in the field.
· Fire engines out of action: Some fire services were unavailable to attend callouts for over a third of the year. And during this summer’s biggest wildfires, nearby stations were unable to provide an available fire engine at record rates.
· Lengthy wait times: Nearly half of those who shared data failed to meet their target response time on average in 2025 and 2026, with response times exceeding 21 hours in some instances.
Gavin Lane, CLA President, said:
“We ask firefighters to risk their lives in conditions most of us would not go near. So we should be giving them the equipment, training and support to come back safely.
“Yet some are being sent into wildfires in heavy kit made for burning buildings, worn for hours across open ground in summer heat. Some have had little more than online training.
“We also need to look beyond our own borders. Places like California and Australia have spent years learning how to fight and prevent large fires. They’ve invested in specialist equipment, training, and a much more proactive approach to managing the land, including through controlled burning. We should be learning from this experience, not acting as though it’s irrelevant to what’s already happening here in Britain.”
“Fire services need the people, training and specialist equipment to protect communities. And government must lift the ban on controlled burning, so landowners have the freedom to reduce fuel loads before a blaze becomes a disaster.”
Firefighters being sent to tackle blazes without the right gear
Over half of forces (12/22) have no specialist wildfire PPE, despite repeated warnings from fire services that standard PPE can be too hot and heavy for wildfire conditions. This can cause crews to overheat, or remove PPE altogether, exposing them to greater danger from heat, smoke and radiation.
Access also varies widely from county to county, with Surrey reporting over 800 PPE kits, and Kent and West Yorkshire issuing one set to every firefighter.
Tyne and Wear also have no terrain support vehicles, which are crucial for reaching wildfires in rough or remote areas that standard engines can’t access. Cheshire and Durham have just one, while forces such as Dorset have 29.
Over a third of stations (8/22) also have no drones, despite how important they are in detecting, mapping and monitoring wildfires.
These gaps come as fire services report record wildfires. Nearly 80% (17/22) of fire services recorded more wildfires in first half of 2026 than they did in the entirety of 2024. And in Berkshire and Shropshire, wildfires hit a five-year record in just the first six months of 2026.
In some areas, just 8% of crew are qualified to undertake wildfire operations
Many fire services also lack basic wildfire training. In West Yorkshire, only 15% of operational personnel hold in date training for wildfires. This rises to 40% in Surrey, while in Norfolk, just 33% of officers and 67% of firefighters have in-date training. Where training courses exist, they are typically conducted online, limiting opportunities for firefighters to complete real-world training.
Many services also lack staff who are qualified to undertake, command, or provide tactical advice at wildfires. In Cheshire, just 8.62% of employees are trained to undertake wildfire operations, while in Cleveland just 5 staff (1.2%) are qualified to give tactical advice or command wildfires.
By contrast, 100% of firefighters and officers in Durham, Kent and East Sussex are trained to undertake wildfire operations.
Fire crews are taking nearly an hour to reach blazes
Nearly half of those who shared data failed to meet their target response time on average in 2025 and 2026.
Over 75% of fire crews (13/17) also reported incidents where they took more than 30 minutes to arrive at the scene in 2026. In the worst cases, waits reached 21 hours in Northamptonshire, 81 minutes in Cumbria, 59 minutes in North Yorkshire and 50 minutes in Hereford.
In Berkshire, where wait times for wildfires specifically were provided, just 16% of all wildfires were attended in the target time, with crews taking as long as 43 minutes to arrive at the scene.
Fire services unavailable to attend callouts a third of the year
Crew shortages also mean many fire engines can’t be deployed for large parts of the year.
In Surrey, West Sussex and Cleveland, engines were unavailable to respond to incidents for more than half the year on average, at 67%, 58% and 52% respectively.
Across the 29 services who shared data, on-call engines were unavailable for an average of 32% of the year, reducing their ability to respond when fires first break out.
In some areas, individual engines were barely ever available at all. Three Essex engines, at Canvey, Braintree and Dovercourt, spent over 90% of the year unavailable, and in Suffolk and Leicestershire, individual engines were unavailable 100% of the time in July 2026 – when the UK heatwave was at its peak.
And during the country’s three biggest wildfires this summer, the fire engines nearby were unable to be deployed at record rates. In Greater Manchester, as a major incident was declared at Dovestone and Saddleworth Moor, on-call engine unavailability jumped to 19.3% in July, compared with under 4% in every other month. At Mossley, next to the fire, the engine was unavailable 26.6% of the month, more than five times its annual average.
And in Dorset,the exact week a major incident was declared over the Holt Heath and Newton Heath wildfires (August 2025), both of Swanage’s engines hit their worst availability of the year, one unavailable 95.2% of the month.
The CLA is calling for change
To tackle this issue, the CLA is calling for more funding, resources and equipment for fire services.
In addition, it is urging government to lift the ban on controlled burning, which is a proven method to remove the dead vegetation that can turn small blazes into major incidents. This would help land managers prevent wildfires before they start, removing some of the burden on fire services as temperatures soar.
Links to all FOIs and summaries can be found here.
