South & West Wales Wildfire Meeting

As Chairman of the England & Wales Wildfire Forum, I was pleased to give a presentation, representing The Heather Trust, at the South and West Wales Wildfire workshop that took place today at the HQ of South Wales Fire & Rescue Service (SWFRS), at Llantrisant to the north of Cardiff. I had the last slot of the day and gave a presentation that covered the ‘The Role of a Wildfire Forum’. I had watched many of the points I wanted to make being covered in the earlier presentations, but this provided me with an opportunity to build on what others had said.

I think that a key role for the wildfire forum is to promote the 'power of partnership' - to develop a consensus amongst the broad range of stakeholders that are engaged in wildfire or that are likely to be affected by it.  I also believe that the wildfire community should work together across the UK, as this will give the message about wildfire the greatest impact. The most important message about wildfire  is that we need to plan for it; it is not a question of if it will happen, but when.

I congratulate SWFRS for putting on a good event, which had support from about 85 delegates. I think there is a strong case for the meeting to be repeated on an annual basis in South Wales, but possibly other regions could use this as a template for their own meetings.

South Wales has expressed an interest in hosting the next wildfire conference, which is likely to take place in November 2019.  Today's event provides a good foundation for this.

It is a wildfire intensive period, as I am in Northern Ireland for a similar meeting on Tuesday, next week and I am speaking to the Cabinet Office about wildfire resilience, on Wednesday next week.