Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 6 hours ago
Londoners are being urged to create firebreaks around their gardens in the face of an “extreme” threat of wildfires.London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner, Tom Goodall, issued guidance after large blazes erupted over the weekend including in Walthamstow and Stratford.

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00We are currently operating in an extreme wildfire warning scenario so that is
00:04likely to be in place until Thursday morning and whilst Londoners may have
00:10noticed that the temperatures have slightly dropped and we've got a very
00:12pleasant breeze, that actually presents us with a real challenge. So where we do
00:17get any fire source, any naked flame, whether it's a barbecue or a poorly
00:20disposed of cigarette, once that starts a fire, given the wind, given the fact
00:25that we've had such an expended period of dry weather, then you can see rapid
00:28rapid wildfires. But as we've seen with climate change across the globe, these
00:33are becoming more normal events so we are preparing for this to be the new
00:37normal for London. London has got such a large expanse of green area, it's one of
00:41its great virtues is how much green space we have in London, but obviously if
00:46you're in a moorland you're not going to have many houses around. In London we've
00:49got lots of residential, lots of urban environment and it's that complex link
00:53between grassland and between vegetation and the urban environment which
00:57presents us with a particular challenge for wildfire.
Comments

Recommended