The UK government is to create an AI Cobra unit to spot wildfires after this year’s record-breaking summer saw devastating blazes across the country. The country experienced its hottest-ever summer this year, with prolonged dry periods and extreme heat fuelling wildfires that triggered an emergency alert to mobile phones in England and Wales. Figures released on 8 October showed a clear upward trend in the number of fires recorded each year.
The Met Office found that the climate crisis made this extreme heat about 130 times more likely. At the government’s first wildfire resilience summit on Friday, Andy Burnham will announce plans for a new wildfire AI unit in the National Situation Centre, which is part of the Cobra briefing rooms. Businesses including Google, Airbus and VodafoneThree are expected to attend the summit to set out how satellite monitoring and early warning systems can help fight fires.
The government said its new AI unit would enable it to “spot and fight fires faster”. The prime minister will also announce £45m for fire crews to buy wildfire-specific personal protective equipment (PPE). This comes after the Guardian revealed that more than half of the 29 fire services that responded to requests for information had no wildfire PPE.
They included the Suffolk fire and rescue service, which had to deal with an “apocalyptic” wildfire earlier this summer that burned close to the Sizewell B nuclear power station and destroyed vast areas of a protected nature reserve. Standard particle-filtering respirators do not protect against dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide, which are heavily present in wildfire smoke. Standard PPE can also be too hot and heavy for wildfire conditions.
This can cause crews to overheat, or remove their PPE altogether, exposing them to greater danger from heat, smoke and radiation. The prime minister will also announce that military planes and helicopters will be made available to fight wildfires on remote moorland, steep hillsides and other hard-to-reach terrain. The defence secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “As the threat of wildfires in the UK grows, defence will step up to provide greater support to our emergency services and protect military training areas across the country.” The government will also look at tougher local restrictions or product bans to stop people starting fires when the risk is high.
In August, Burnham announced a temporary ban on sales of disposable barbecues. He has also been criticised for failing to address the climate emergency in his wildfire response. Farmers will also be given funding to make landscapes more resilient to fires.
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