Crews face days of work to stop New Forest fire flare-ups

Phil Carrigan, chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council, said that recent weather change have helped reduce the number of wildfires in the last few days but crews were still dealing with a “significant number” across south Wales, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire as well as the West Midlands.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast, he added there may be more hot weather ahead.

He said: “I’m not sure it’s behind us, there’s already conversations about particularly hot days in September, so if we move into a sixth heatwave we need to be prepared and we need to be effective and certainly that focuses in on the role of fire and rescue services.”

“So we continue to be vigilant, we don’t think we’re through this yet, but we know that we’ve got a bit of respite – over the last 24 hours but moving into this week.”