UK bans disposable barbecues during nationwide wildfire alert

A temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues took effect across the UK on August 14 as phones in England and Wales received a nationwide alert warning of a “very high risk of wildfires”. NBC News reports the move came as Britain faced drought conditions and a prolonged heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 38C, and as fire crews dealt with hundreds of incidents in recent weeks.

The government order told retailers to remove disposable barbecues from sale immediately and said the measure would stay in place while the heightened risk continues. The alert also warned against other ignition sources, including firepits, garden incinerators and fireworks, framing the threat in terms of lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders. Phil Garrigan, chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, said the number of wildfires this year has already surpassed all-time records, and described a season that now seems to run into November.

The ban sits alongside a second, more physical constraint: capacity. Britain does not have firefighting planes, according to NBC, even as officials describe fires that spread fast enough for residents to flee with whatever they can carry. Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the scene of a fire in Stourbridge in the West Midlands that destroyed 19 homes and said he had not seen such scenes in Britain before; he also said he would seek to commission firefighting planes. In the 24 hours before the August 14 alert, 11 major wildfire incidents were declared in the UK, and the fire and rescue service struggled to meet requests for support.

The same weather pattern is testing emergency systems across Europe. NBC reports evacuations in southern Spain after a fire in Huelva province, evacuations in western Germany from the village of Gey near the Belgian border, and evacuations in southwestern France from the village of Luglon in the Landes region. Croatia and Greece have also moved tourists from resorts as fires spread.

In Britain, the disposable barbecue ban is a blunt instrument aimed at the easiest retail lever: remove a popular ignition source during a spell of tinder-dry ground and hope behaviour follows. It also exposes how much of wildfire response depends on what can be improvised quickly—alerts, restrictions, redeployments—when specialised assets are not already contracted and sitting ready.

The government’s message to the public was that even a small flame can rapidly become a major wildfire. The state’s own constraint, NBC notes, is that it is trying to fight a record season without planes.