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“Huge wildfires are inevitable when vegetation is allowed to grow unchecked. Sooner or later there will be a spark. Add low humidity and strong winds and the horrors of Los Angeles follow. California’s politicians had failed to heed the warning from scientists that the risk of high-intensity wildfires was being increased by a ‘longstanding policy failure…to counteract the gradual accumulation of flammable organic materials’”…Yet while the Los Angeles tragedy was down to political negligence, here, growing the fuel load of vegetation was the deliberate policy of the previous government. For many years Natural England has been blocking land managers from reducing the fuel load on moorland. The extension of these restrictions in 2021 immediately led to a further 73% reduction in fuel load management through traditional winter burns. Neither burned nor mowed, the heather, which was already getting too long, has since been increasing year in, year out”.