Michael Byrne, a climate scientist at St Andrews University, told the BBC’s Radio Scotland Breakfast the fire followed on from Scotland’s first ‘megafire’ which destroyed a vast area of moorland last year.
The fire on Dava Moor, around Grantown-on-Spey and Forres, started on 28 June and burned for four days. It is thought it destroyed as much land as typically burns across the UK in an entire year.
“What we see on the global scale is an increasing burned area associated with wildfires which has a strong fingerprint of climate change,” he said.
“In Scotland we are seeing more rainfall during the winter and milder temperatures which are great conditions for growing lots of vegetation. When that vegetation dies there’s now more of it in a warming climate so there’s more to burn.”
He said Scotland had warmed more than one degree since pre-industrial times.
“That warmer air sucks more moisture out of dead vegetation making that vegetation much more flammable,” he added.
Christopher Blanchett, senior weather presenter at BBC Scotland, said the west Highlands met the heatwave threshold earlier this week – a heatwave is defined by a specific area reaching 25C or higher for three days in a row.
He said the Cairngorms area had seen no real rain for seven days, adding that no significant rainfall was expected in the next week.
“We have had such high temperatures that the soil and vegetation dries out quickly so the wildfire risk is high,” he said.
“We are not expecting heatwave temperatures today but even if it rains it will take a while to recover so it won’t alleviate the wildfire risk.”
If you see a large outdoor fire, call 999 immediately. Give the location and any other relevant information so fire crews can respond quickly.
