Vast areas of habitat for animals including butterflies, beetles and falcons have been damaged, and some peat bogs may take “hundreds of years” to recover following one of the driest Marches in decades combined with warmer than average temperatures in April.
Abergwesyn Common in Powys, Wales, was consumed by a 1,600-hectare (3,950-acre) fire.
The common is a site of special scientific interest, and a breeding habitat for the area’s last known population of golden plovers. National Trust rangers now fear this rare, protected moorland bird may have been lost to the area entirely.
Chris Smith, the National Trust’s countryside manager for Mid and South Wales, said: “Whole ecosystems have been decimated and will remain altered well into the future.
“Alongside this, the huge loss of surface vegetation leaves the peat bogs we have been working hard to restore … vulnerable to erosion and at further risk of fire and carbon loss.
“Where the flames burnt down to the peat soils, they will take hundreds of years to recover.”
In 2024, South Wales fire and rescue service responded to 34 wildfire callouts between 1 January and 10 April. This year, it has faced 445 over the same period – a 1,200% increase.
In total, Wales’s three fire services have reported responding to more than 1,300 grass fires so far this year.
In the Peak District, the National Trust said a recent fire on Howden Moor that stretched for 2km had caused £30,000-worth of damage, ruining years’ worth of conservation efforts.
In Northern Ireland, recent fires on the Mourne Mountains have scorched land used by an array of wildlife including small heath butterflies, rove beetles, skylarks and peregrine falcons.