UK must 'face up to changing climate' as visits fire-hit town, PM says

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Friday that Britain must face up to the changing climate and accelerate its move to clean energy as he visited a town where a wildfire gutted homes.

In Stourbridge near the UK’s second largest city of Birmingham, smoke rose from smouldering ruins of several roofless houses as firefighters sprayed water on the wreckage Friday.

The West Midlands Fire Service said 19 houses were completely destroyed and 18 others damaged in the town.

Meeting firefighters after viewing the scene, Burnham sounded shocked as he said the “combustible situation” was related to climate change and showed the need for a more rapid transition to clean energy.

“I’ve never seen scenes like this in Britain, where you just see a whole house gutted, smouldering,” he said.

“We have to face up to the changing climate…there’s no point denying where we are. We need to face up to it. We need more clean energy,” he stressed.

Britain has set a target to consume zero-carbon electricity by 2030 and is aiming to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to combat climate change.

Describing Britain as “a tinderbox” with 37 blazes around the country on Friday, the prime minister warned against lighting fires outdoors, as the government introduced a ban on selling disposable barbecue equipment.

Residents of Stourbridge were evacuated and people treated for smoke inhalation after the fire spread on Thursday, the UK’s hottest day of the year so far.

One firefighter was hospitalised and five others suffered minor injuries, the fire service said Friday, as crews were still extinguishing “hotspots” in open grassland, along a railway and in gardens.

As dry conditions sparked multiple wildfires, six other firefighters farther north in Staffordshire, were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion, the fire service said.

The ambulance service in the West Midlands region, including Stourbridge and Staffordshire, said that on Thursday it had treated 68 people with symptoms such as smoke inhalation, 25 of whom were hospitalised.

The West Midlands, alongside nearly three-quarters of England, is in drought after weeks of high temperatures and scant rainfall, increasing the risk of fires.

‘Extensive devastation’

Emergency services said some of the blazes around Stourbridge were set deliberately in grasslands before spreading.

“This has been one of the most significant incidents that West Midlands Fire Service has ever attended,” chief fire officer Simon Tuhill told a press conference late on Thursday.

He blamed the rapid spread on “tinder dry” conditions and said the “devastation is extensive.”

So far this summer, firefighters have mainly battled wildfires in rural areas and moorland across the country.

Burnham promised to convene a summit with fire services, acknowledging the government had not supplied enough resources to deal with wildfires.

And he revealed plans to commission firefighting planes, of the types used to douse flames in Europe and the United States.

“It’s been a particularly difficult, busy period for the fire and rescue service, where we’ve been under significant pressure,” the head of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), Phil Garrigan, told BBC Radio 4.

“Firefighters have been on the front line of climate change for a number of years. They’re doing their absolute best to protect communities and properties,” he said.

Additional sources • AFP

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