For more than 800 years, frequent low-temperature cultural burning kept part of south-eastern Australia as stable, open woodland. After that management was disrupted, hot fire became dominant, shrubs thickened and eucalypt cover rose nearly fourfold. New research in @Nature finds this transformation began before anthropogenic warming, leaving a more flammable landscape that climate change now intensifies. The study strengthens the case for treating wildfire as a land-management problem as well as a climate problem: fuel loads and vegetation structure are both key.

One moorland wildfire demanded a 40-day response from North Yorkshire crews. The 25 sq km Langdale Moor fire placed sustained pressure on full-time and on-call firefighters, affecting other employment and operational availability while emergency cover still had to be maintained. A new report recommends better relief and rotation arrangements for long-running incidents. Read more - link is in replies: