Scotland’s wildfire season is no longer something land managers can afford to think about only when the smoke is visible, delegates at the Scottish Land & Estates Moorland Conference were told.
The sold-out event at Perth Racecourse brought together around 200 landowners, land managers and gamekeepers, with much of the discussion shaped by the events of 2025.
Opening the conference, SLE chairman Patrick Colquhoun welcomed delegates and pointed to the work already being done across managed moorland. The Angus Glens impact report was referred to as evidence of the scale of practical delivery taking place on the ground, from habitat management to rural employment.
But wildfire dominated the early part of the day.
Kenny Barbour, Deputy Assistant Chief Officer and head of prevention at the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, said Scotland had seen a change in wildfire patterns. That, he said, made prevention work between fire crews, land managers and rural businesses increasingly important.
His figures showed the contrast between recent years. Scotland recorded 103 wildfires in 2020, 143 in 2021, 146 in 2022 and 145 in 2023. A wet spring helped bring the 2024 total down to 55.
The following year told a different story.
In 2025, delegates heard, there were 231 large outdoor wildfires in Scotland. April was the busiest month by a distance, with 109 incidents. The months on either side were also active, with 31 in March and 41 in May.
Mr Barbour said April has become the pressure point for wildfire, with dead vegetation drying out before new growth has come through. He told the conference that wildfire risk warnings had been in place for 59 days during 2025, around 16% of the year.
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He joked that he does a “rain dance” every morning in the hope of a wet summer. The joke landed, but the point behind it was serious. Wildfire is now a risk to homes, livestock, wildlife, businesses, infrastructure and the people sent to deal with it.
The Scottish Government’s wildfire action plan has since recorded 2025 as Scotland’s most severe wildfire season on record, with 241 wildfire incidents. The Carrbridge and Dava Moor fires were the most serious, burning almost 10,000 hectares according to government figures.
Ross Ewing, SLE’s Director of Moorland & Strategic Projects, said the Carrbridge and Dava incident had put wildfire at the front of people’s minds.
He said the recent Pentland Hills fire showed what could happen when local land managers and SFRS worked together quickly. SLE said that response involved 10 estates and farms, with 16 gamekeepers and 14 farmers using fogging units, all-terrain vehicles and a tractor on steep ground.
Around 17 hectares were affected, but the fire was stopped before it could spread across Black Hill and the main Pentland ridge.
The message from the conference was not that land managers should replace the fire service. It was that they know the ground, have equipment nearby and can help contain a fire in the crucial early stages when proper coordination is in place.
Mr Barbour said communication was fundamental. Ministerial summits, MSP roundtables, community meetings and multi-agency debriefs had all reached a similar view: the will to work together is there.
The concern now is whether that can be turned into systems before the next dry spell.
He warned that, without progress, Scotland may need to think more seriously about how evacuations of small villages and towns would be handled during major wildfire events.
That warning gave the morning a practical edge. The question was not whether wildfire is a rural issue. It was how quickly Scotland can organise itself around a risk that is already here.
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