Topography and Climate of the United Kingdom

             

Compared to the United States, the United Kingdom has a relatively small land mass of about 95,000 square miles; nevertheless, it has a diverse topography with an upland area that accounts for approximately a third of the country's total land area.

There is a wide variety of vegetation across the country, including upland and lowland heath and moorland; natural and managed forest, grassland and scrubland; and, particularly in the lowlands, large areas of arable farming with wheat, barley and other standing crops. Most of the larger wildfire events occur in moor and heath land areas where fuel is mixed. These can cover significant areas of the landscape and often result in fires that can demonstrate extreme fire behavior, particularly if gorse and heather (calluna) are the prevalent fuel types, and burn for many days.

Almost all of the U.K. landscape is professionally managed, but there are large parts of the landscape that, although not classified as wilderness, are particularly remote. Forestation accounts for approximately 9% of the land cover — well below the 44% forestation cover across mainland Europe. But significantly, most of the forest is a managed, commercial resource that is not merely natural woodland. This effective management may account for why few major wildfire events are found in U.K. forests, and why fires on the scale of those found in the United States and southern Europe are extremely rare.

Although the overall climate is generally mild, in recent years there have been some marked deviations from general climatic assumptions. Extreme weather conditions have been experienced during the winter months, manifested by extended periods of freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall, and there have been extended periods of very hot and dry weather from May to September.

Overall, warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers are becoming more common, presenting the ideal conditions for intensive vegetation growth to generate a much greater fuel load should weather conditions support wildfire during the spring and summer months.

• Read the main story, "Toward an Expanded Lexicon," sidebar to learn why the U.K. fire-rescue service is learning that wildfires are a serious threat that requires their own tactics.