How a Welsh firefighter is leading the fight against wildfires in the Valleys

Craig Hope, a firefighter for 30 years in South Wales, tells us how he is seeing fires moving to drier seasons and becoming more damaging

Apr 24, 2024

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Craig Hope has been a firefighter in the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service for the last 30 years. He is the group manager for training and development for the service and an expert on wildfires. He told us how things have changed over his time as a firefighter: how the changes in weather impacts flooding, landslides and fire seasons, and how they’re all linked. He showed us around the Rhondda Valley, and explained the reasons we are seeing more wildfires, especially in South Wales.

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"I’m not an expert on climate change but what I am seeing is a reality - fires are moving to a drier period and they will be more damaging..."

“...as you move into the summer you’ve got drier periods of weather...the ground is drier [and] these fires are a lot, lot more difficult to put out.

They start to involve your coarser fuels - like trees and forestry plantation, and then off the back of that what you get is linked natural hazards, as you’ve seen over the last number of years you’ve had some significant storms - and [these] have the potential to cause erosion which can lead to landslides. In 2020 storm Dennis caused that mountain to actually slip and land in the valley below. It was 60,000 tonnes of coal slag, which is colliery waste.”

“We’re in a post industrial landscape from coal mining - so everything that was taken out of the ground was tipped on the mountains - so things like the pollution of water courses, and pollution of drinking water after you’ve had a deep-seated fire on a hillside, because all that pollution that’s been stored in that mountain for many years and [is] now being washed into our drinking water.”

“All these problems, and is it related to climate change? We do seem to be getting long periods of of very dry hot weather and very long periods of long, wet weather... living in the valleys you’ve got the risk of fire, you’ve got the risk of flooding and now we’ve got the risk of these...coal tips slipping and then how does that effect people’s home prices, insurance and everything else...and then you start to think how is this going to affect the area I live in in the future.”

“It becomes mentally difficult because you’ve got to look after your own mental health and wellbeing as well. You’re seeing that these summer fires are coming, you’re seeing that the risk is increasing – the risk to people, to properties, to firefighters - and that’s in your head and really you’re trying to bang this drum all the time but no one’s really listening to you… It is difficult and sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle as well because I’m not a scientist and I’m not an expert on climate change but what I am seeing is a reality - fires are moving to a drier period and they will be more damaging.”