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Wildfire risk on peatland: what a fire season means for a restoration project
For peatland restoration project developers and estate managers in the UK.
A fire season puts three things into a peatland project plan: a scored fire risk, a duty to report losses, and burning rules that differ by nation. The 2025 Dava Moor fire in Scotland released 38,600 tonnes of carbon in four days, most of it from peat.
- A Peatland Code project must notify the Code team "within 30 calendar days of discovering the reversal", under the Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance (October 2024).
- The depth line differs by nation. England licenses burning on peat "deeper than 30cm" in a less favoured area (GOV.UK, updated 30 September 2025). Scotland defines peatland as peat "more than 40 centimetres" thick (2024 Act, section 22).
- The Code's advisory board recorded on 18 November 2025 that "emissions from burning and post-burn peatlands remain unquantified" (Technical Advisory Board minutes).
Your Peatland Code risk management plan has to cover wildfire. The Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance, published in October 2024, asks for a "Risk Management Plan that includes wildfire risk limitation". This guide sets out the published figures, the rules in each nation and the entries to settle before the next fire season.
- Against
- Dava Moor fire, 2025 (range 25,200 to 119,000)
- Source
- Schoenecker and others, Nature Geoscience, 20 May 2026
- Date
- Checked 10 Nov 2026
- Against
- To notify a reversal to the Peatland Code team
- Source
- Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance, October 2024
- Date
- Checked 10 Nov 2026
- Against
- Scotland, 2025 season
- Source
- Scottish Government, Wildfires: strategic action plan, 5 March 2026
- Date
- Checked 10 Nov 2026
What did the 2025 fire season show about peat carbon?
One fire in Scotland released most of a normal UK year of fire emissions, and most of that carbon came from the soil. That is the finding of Widespread peat carbon losses driven by the 2025 Scottish megafire, published in Nature Geoscience on 20 May 2026.
The fire formed when two fires at Dava and Carrbridge merged between 28 June and 1 July 2025. The authors report 106 field measurements taken after the fire. They report that peat burning "even occurred in historically wet bogs due to the low soil moisture".
The paper covers one fire in one dry spell. The authors "could not identify peatlands with histories of drainage" at the site, so it does not compare drained with restored ground.
| Published figure | Value | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon emitted, Dava Moor fire | 38,600 tonnes of carbon (range 25,200 to 119,000) | Schoenecker and others, Nature Geoscience, 20 May 2026 |
| Share of that carbon from peat | 84 per cent, or 32,500 tonnes ("nearly 85%" in the abstract) | Same paper |
| Area burned | Approximately 10,000 hectares in 4 days | Same paper |
| Against mean UK fire emissions, 2001 to 2021 | About 85 per cent (38,600 against 44,900 tonnes of carbon a year) | Same paper |
| Carbon dioxide released | "over 140 thousand tonnes of CO2" | University of East Anglia release, 20 May 2026, republished by the Tyndall Centre |
| Wildfires recorded in Scotland in 2025 | 241 | Scottish Government, Wildfires: strategic action plan, 5 March 2026 |
| Marsden Moor, 2023 | Seven wildfires across about 10 per cent of a 2,000 hectare estate | IUCN UK Peatland Programme brief, November 2024 |
Table sources: Schoenecker and others (2026), the release as reported by the Tyndall Centre, the strategic action plan and the Wildfire resilience brief. The paper reports megagrams of carbon; one megagram is one tonne.
What the Peatland Code asks a project to do about fire
The Code treats fire as a scored risk before units are issued and as a reportable loss afterwards. The wording below is from the Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance (October 2024).
Score it
Fire sits in the category "Extreme Weather, Pest, Geological Events, Fire". You score likelihood from 1 to 5 and impact from 1 to 5, then multiply. Likelihood 5 means "At least every 9 years". Impact 5 means a loss of more than 70 per cent of expected emission reductions.
Bring it under the line
"Scores for any event activity category above 13 pose an unacceptable risk" and must be reduced through mitigation before pending issuance units are issued.
Write the plan
The plan "could include rewetting and diversifying the vegetation composition". Other methods "can be considered on areas where re-wetting may not be effective", and the guidance gives "cutting firebreaks" as its example.
"Fire prevention and fire control measures shall be in place for areas which are considered high risk for wildfire."
Report a loss
Fires are listed among unintentional reversals. You notify the Code team "within 30 calendar days of discovering the reversal" and "provide quarterly updates" until it is mitigated. The team "will cancel units from the buffer pool" for the confirmed quantity.
The accounting behind this is still open. The Technical Advisory Board minutes of 18 November 2025 record: "Need to define fire-related emissions and what goes into the risk buffer."
The minutes of 24 February 2026 carry the action forward: "Follow up with the CF team about the fire emissions inventory." Date your plan and expect this part of the rules to move.
Which burning rules apply to your site?
Each nation publishes its own season and its own licence rule, and two of them turn on peat depth. So your depth records are also your compliance records.
| Nation | Published season | Licence or peat rule | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| England | "1 October to 15 April in upland areas"; "1 November to 31 March in other areas" | Defra licence to burn on peat deeper than 30cm within a less favoured area, from 30 September 2025 | GOV.UK, updated 30 September 2025 |
| Scotland | Standard muirburn season: 15 September to 31 March | "From 15 September 2026, a licence will be required to carry out muirburn on any land in Scotland." | NatureScot |
| Wales | 1 October to 31 March in upland areas; 1 November to 15 March elsewhere | Licence from the Welsh Ministers outside the season and for burns listed in regulation 6 | 2008 Regulations; GOV.WALES |
| Northern Ireland | An offence to burn vegetation on uncultivated land "between 15 April and 31 August in any year" | Restrictions and consent requirements may apply in an Area of Special Scientific Interest | DAERA, NIFRS and PSNI, 16 March 2026 |
In England the amended Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 allow a licence on four grounds, one of which is "to reduce the impact of wildfire". The licence guidance (updated 30 September 2025) states: "You must submit a completed copy of a wildfire management plan with your application."
In Scotland, NatureScot lists five purposes for a licence on peatland. Two concern "preventing, or reducing the risk of, wildfires". The Scottish Government announcement of 9 October 2025 moved the start to autumn 2026. The NatureScot page still used the future tense on 10 November 2026, so confirm the current position there.
In Wales, the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service states that land managers "must have a Burn Plan in place".
Managed burning is contested, and the published positions differ. The Scottish Government's strategic action plan lists "regulated muirburn" among practices that reduce fuel loads. The IUCN UK Peatland Programme's position statement (version 5, April 2025) says "managed burning acts as a direct source of ignition for some wildfires".
Natural England's evidence review NEER155 (31 March 2025) states: "Evidence on the relationship between burning and wildfire in the UK context is limited, though out-of-control managed burns are a cause of wildfire."
Does rewetting change fire risk?
The published evidence points in more than one direction for UK upland peat, and a project plan should say so. Three sources set out the range.
- The case that it does. The IUCN UK Peatland Programme brief Wildfire resilience (November 2024) says a water table near the surface "limits the capacity of uncontrolled fires to burn into the peat layer". It reports wet Sphagnum areas and restoration dams acting as firebreaks at Marsden Moor in 2023. It also notes "a poor understanding of why some sites are more prone to severe wildfires than others".
- The modelling. Granath and others (2016), in Scientific Reports, find that rewetting "can effectively lower the risk of these deep burns". The study models drained and mined peatlands in Canada and northern Europe, and discusses blanket peatlands only briefly.
- The challenge. Heinemeyer and others (2025), in Mires and Peat, rate the claim that rewetting protects peatlands against wildfire as "Unsubstantiated as no adequate data or models to support statement". They report that ending burning at one long-term site "caused a significant increase in above-ground biomass".
The Dava Moor paper sits between them. It says restoration "could help reduce the risk of peat burning", and it records burning in historically wet bogs under very low soil moisture. For your plan, that means a rewetted site still needs a scored fire risk and a way to record a loss.
Illustrative example
An invented site: 400 hectares of upland blanket bog in a less favoured area in England, registered under the Peatland Code. The figures below are made up; the rules are the published ones.
Depth against the threshold
Probing shows 310 hectares deeper than 30 cm, which is 310 divided by 400, or 77.5 per cent of the site. Any burning there needs a Defra licence. The same site in Scotland is tested against 40 cm, so the count has to be redone.
The fire risk score
The project judges a damaging fire as likely "Every 25 to 49 years" (likelihood 3) with a loss of 50 to 69 per cent (impact 4). The score is 3 times 4, or 12, under the line of 13.
If two dry summers move the likelihood to "Every 10 to 24 years" (likelihood 4), the score is 4 times 4, or 16. Mitigation is then required before units are issued.
A sense of scale
Dava Moor emitted 38,600 tonnes of carbon over about 10,000 hectares, or 3.86 tonnes per hectare. Multiply by 44 and divide by 12 for carbon dioxide: about 14.2 tonnes per hectare.
A 60 hectare fire at that average is 60 times 14.2, or about 852 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The paper's range gives 9.2 to 43.6 tonnes per hectare, so 552 to 2,616 tonnes.
This is a scale check, not a forecast. The Dava figure is an average over one burn area in one dry spell, and loss on any other site depends on its own peat, fuel and weather.
Writing fire into a project plan this winter? Send us your site and we reply within two working days.
Fire season planner
The planner puts the published dates for your nation on a twelve month strip, with a checklist for the current season. Use it to place fire tasks in the project calendar.
Fire season planner
Choose your nation and land type. The dates are the ones cited in this article.
The checklist is a planning aid written for this article. It is not official guidance. A date inside the season is not permission to burn: the licence rules shown above still apply. For fire safety, follow your fire and rescue service and the national guidance linked above.
Fire weather outputs are published by nation. The Met Office Fire Severity Index "evaluates how severe a wildfire could become if one were to ignite". It "does not predict when or where wildfires will start". In Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service issues wildfire danger assessments with the Scottish Wildfire Forum.
What buyers and insurers will ask
A buyer or insurer wants to know who carries the loss and what the record shows. The IUCN UK Peatland Programme's Buying and Selling credits page says a pending issuance unit "is not 'guaranteed'". It adds: "The sale of a PIU always requires a legal contract to determine who carries the risk of the PIU not getting verified in the future."
Insurers are publishing on this. As reported by Scottish Business News on 31 July 2025, a carbon insurer's study said dry conditions with wind and topography "significantly increase the likelihood of fire ignition by two-fold".
So expect four requests: dated risk scores, the fire plan, the depth and condition baseline, and the record of any fire.
What to do next
- Open the rule page for your nation from the table above. Check your peat depth records against its threshold.
- Score fire in your risk management plan using the two published scales, and date the score.
- Agree with your fire and rescue service and your neighbours who holds the fire plan and the site map.
- Decide now how you would record a fire: mapped extent, burn depth into the peat and photographs, ready for the 30 day notification.
- Where depth decides which rule applies, get a read of the whole site before you plan the probing.
The Site Evidence Pack is a desk read of a site before survey, for sites in the UK and Ireland. Every figure in a pack carries its range, its source and its test label.
A pack gives a desk read of likely peat depth and condition for the site, and it tells the surveyor where to probe first. Tested results are on the Results page. Vireo can also supply the surveys: drone, aerial and ground.
Does the Peatland Code set a fixed percentage for the risk buffer?
The Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance does not state one. It refers to "the same percentage contribution to the risk buffer as during validation". Ask the Code team for the figure that applies to your project.
Where is fire safety guidance published?
By your fire and rescue service and in the national guidance linked in the table. This article covers project planning and records only.
Sources
- Schoenecker and others: Widespread peat carbon losses driven by the 2025 Scottish megafire, Nature Geoscience 19, 763 to 766, 20 May 2026, University of East Anglia repository copy (checked 10 November 2026)
- Tyndall Centre: UK's first megafire unleashed nearly a year of fire emissions in four days, republishing the University of East Anglia release of 20 May 2026, posted 22 May 2026 (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Peatland Code 2.1 Guidance, October 2024 (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Peatland Code Technical Advisory Board minutes, 18 November 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Peatland Code Technical Advisory Board minutes, 24 February 2026 (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Buying and Selling credits (checked 10 November 2026)
- GOV.UK: Heather and grass burning: rules and when you need a licence, updated 30 September 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- GOV.UK, Defra: Guidance: how to apply for a licence to burn on peat deeper than 30cm within a less favoured area, updated 30 September 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk: The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021, as amended by S.I. 2025/1000 (checked 10 November 2026)
- NatureScot: Muirburn licensing (checked 10 November 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk: Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, section 22 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Scottish Government: Muirburn licence scheme, news release, 9 October 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Scottish Government: Wildfires: strategic action plan, 5 March 2026 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Scottish Fire and Rescue Service: Wildfire Danger Assessments (checked 10 November 2026)
- legislation.gov.uk: The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (Wales) Regulations 2008, as made (checked 10 November 2026)
- Welsh Government: Heather and grass burning out of season: application form, 19 January 2010 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service: Burn to Protect campaign page (checked 10 November 2026)
- Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, with DAERA and PSNI: Protect people, property and nature from wildfires, 16 March 2026 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Met Office: Fire Severity Index (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Position Statement: Burning on Peatlands, version 5, April 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme: Wildfire resilience: why rewetting peatlands must play a key role, November 2024 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Heinemeyer and others: Prescribed heather burning on peatlands: a review of ten key claims, Mires and Peat 32, article 12, 2025, repository copy (checked 10 November 2026)
- Natural England: An evidence review update on the effects of managed burning on upland peatland biodiversity, carbon and water (NEER155), 31 March 2025 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Granath and others: Mitigating wildfire carbon loss in managed northern peatlands through restoration, Scientific Reports 6, 28498, 2016 (checked 10 November 2026)
- Scottish Business News: New analysis reveals wildfire hotspots threatening Scottish woodlands, 31 July 2025, secondary source (checked 10 November 2026)
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