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The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has published a five year framework intended to reduce the threat of wildfires in the countryside, identifying 35 key areas of development to improve resilience.
The Wildfires in Northern Ireland Strategic Framework 2025 – 2030 is the product of work by the Strategic Wildfire Group which includes the Northern Ireland Fire Service and other wildfire stakeholders. It sets the direction of travel over the next five years and provides a roadmap to guide wildfire prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and enforcement work in Northern Ireland.
Welcoming the framework, NIFRS Assistant Chief Fire & Rescue Officer Marcus Wright said:
“The collaborative multi-agency approach details a new way forward in a set of cooordinated actions that seek to reduce the frequency and severity of wildfires. We are encouraged by the unified approach in the development of this framework as we want firefighters to be ready and available to respond to incidents in their local community when called upon.”
The framework includes key areas of work and how Northern Ireland will ‘strengthen a timely and effective wildfire response.’ In addition to the development of an early alert system, the framework identifies the need to review wildfire tactical response capability, improve cross border response protocols and enhance multi-agency and stakeholder response to wildfire
incidents.
With a focus on prevention, the CFO added: “Dealing with the increasing number and scale of wildfires, which are largely preventable, adds significant physical demands on firefighters and resources, and places strain on our service.
“Through this framework we are committed to working with partners to reduce the risk and impact of wildfires to help protect life, the environment and make Northern Ireland a safer place.”
For more information, read the full document, Wildfires in Northern Ireland Strategic Framework 2025 – 2030.
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