Guidance

Supporting information for completing your plan

Published 30 September 2025

Applies to England

This page contains supporting information for completing a wildfire management plan. It contains information on:

• establishing a wildfire risk rating
• fire and fuel breaks and fuel management as control measures

Wildfire risk rating

You need to establish a risk rating when creating a risk assessment for your wildfire management plan.

To find out the risk rating, multiply the likelihood scale by the severity scale. This will give you a risk rating between 1 and 25:

• 1 to 5 = low risk
• 6 to 10 = moderate risk
• 12 to 16 = high risk
• 20 to 25 = unacceptable risk

For example, if your likelihood scale is 2 and the severity scale is 4, your wildfire risk rating is 8 (moderate risk).

Likelihood of wildfire

Description	Scale
Event may occur only in exceptional circumstances	1
Event could occur at some time	2
Event will occur at some time	3
Event could occur in most circumstances	4
Event will occur in most circumstances	5

Severity of the wildfire

Description	Scale
Life: Minor local first aid treatment (e.g. minor cuts/abrasions) Property/business: No financial loss or damage Environment: Minor damage; habitats and species will recover in less than a year	1
Life: Injury requiring first aid treatment Property/business: Minor financial losses (up to 1% of profit), disruption or damage Environment: Minor damage; habitats and species will recover in 1–5 years	2
Life: Medical treatment required Property/business: Serious financial losses (up to 5% of profit), disruption or damage Environment: Serious damage; habitats and species will recover in 5–10 years	3
Life: Permanent or life-changing injuries Property/business: Major financial losses (up to 10% of profit), disruption or damage Environment: Major damage; habitats and species will recover in 10–20 years	4
Life: Single or multiple deaths Property/business: Destruction of the property (total loss) or business Environment: Irreversible impact on habitats or species	5

Fire and fuel breaks and fuel management as control measures

The purpose of your wildfire management plan is to clearly provide evidence that burning is necessary. There are 2 practical reasons to burn:

• to provide linear fire breaks
• for areas of fuel management

Your wildfire management plan should demonstrate how you’ll reduce the impact of wildfire through the placement of fire and fuel breaks, or the reduction of fuel load. Training is available if you require further support, such as on the LANTRA website.

Below are key points to consider when designing your control measures.

Be clear about how control measures will be implemented

Fire and fuel breaks can be used as control lines during a fire response. They can slow fire spread and provide ‘windows of opportunity’ for fire suppression.

You should use fire breaks to alter fire behaviour at key points (for example, in ridges and flat areas) and create control lines that help responders contain the fire.

Fire and fuel breaks are a first step in effective fire suppression. You will need to consider how active fire suppression (for example, using water or fire beaters) can be achieved.

Map and plan proactively

Create a map that shows fire and fuel breaks, fuel management and resilient wet areas in relation to:

• high-risk assets
• likely ignition sources
• dominant wind directions
• terrain features that influence fire spread

You should include this map in Section 4 of your wildfire management plan.

Position breaks and fuel management strategically

Fire and fuel breaks are only effective if fuel management is next to or near to them. If planned correctly they will help reduce fire intensity, increasing the success of fire suppression. Fire and fuel breaks will need to connect directly to other breaks, fuel management, roads and tracks or lower risk habitats, to ensure there are no gaps.

Breaks with gaps can result in wildfires that place responders at serious risk. Breaks should therefore create a ‘network’ in the landscape, supported by fuel management, to provide numerous ‘windows of opportunity’ for fire suppression by responders.

When placing breaks and fuel management consider the assets you are looking to protect and how they will interact with topology, such as slopes, hills and valleys and various wind directions and speeds. While some breaks will be effective in some scenarios, they may not be effective in others. This is why a network is important.

Consider the size of the break

The size of the break should consider risk from nearby vegetation fuel, topography and wind direction or speed. For example, mature heather with a wildfire likely to go up hill is likely to need a wider break than juvenile heather on flat ground.

Managing soil and vegetation effectively

Fire breaks can be cut or burnt but will leave some vegetation behind. If any of your control measures involve managing soil and vegetation, your wildfire management plan should describe:

• treating peat soils with caution as bare and exposed peat can burn and can carry fire underground - your plan should aim to protect these areas until they can be restored
• maintaining breaks frequently to prevent fine fuels from building up
• encouraging mosses like Sphagnum to dominate breaks and reduce maintenance needs
• finely chopping dwarf shrubs using forage harvesters and disperse the arisings away from cut zones - you should let it settle on the ground to retain moisture, suppress regrowth, and reduce flammability
• using existing features such as tracks and cut control lines to help contain your burns and to reduce the risk of them going out of control

If you are not planning on using existing features and control lines for burning, you will have to demonstrate the additional control measures you plan on introducing. This could include demonstrating a higher level of competency , which is needed to ensure burns do not go out of control.

Integrate existing features

You can use fire and fuel breaks to divide moorland, isolate ignition-prone areas, and protect key habitats or infrastructure.

If this is part of your plan, you should incorporate:

• tracks and access routes
• ribbon ponds, stone walls, wet flushes, and short grazed grass
• blocked gullies that retain water and create wet zones
• plastic piling dams to form permanent pools

Protect infrastructure

You can include built structures such as grouse butts and their access paths in your fire and fuel break and fuel management network. Their short vegetation and clear routes support suppression operations.

Use short, green, grazed grassland as natural fire breaks. This is especially important on neutral or alkaline soils where grazing reduces fuel load and speeds up decomposition.

Make a contingency plan

You should clearly describe in your wildfire management plan what you intend to do if burning goes out of control. This should include the suppression equipment you will use to contain the burn, how the burn will be managed using sufficient staffing and your procedure for informing the emergency services. You should inform the fire and rescue services before you burn, and share your wildfire response plan (Section 3 of your wildfire management plan) in advance.

Monitor and maintain regularly

Your plan should reference how you currently (or intend to) inspect fire and fuel breaks and fuel management to track vegetation growth and assess effectiveness. Your plan should detail who is responsible and a schedule for monitoring and maintenance to ensure long-term performance.