National Assembly for Wales

Welcome, everybody, to the meeting of the Climate Change, Environment, Sustainability and Rural Affairs Committee, broadcast live on Senedd.tv and a Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. Can I please note that the meeting is bilingual? So, simultaneous translation is available from Cymraeg to Saesneg. And I'd also just like to mention on the record that this is Laura Anne Jones's first meeting, but she is running slightly late due to the lovely traffic that surrounds Cardiff. So, she'll be joining us when she gets here. So, I'd just like to ask Members: are there any declarations of interest that haven't been raised before on the public record? No. Lovely.

I'd just like to also note that today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, one of our biggest tragedies in Welsh history, claiming the lives of 144 people and children in that community, and it has left a lasting impact on that community. I'm sure Members will join with me in wishing my good wishes to all those people who are remembering this event today and those families of the people who've lost loved ones. I'd also just like to say that, as a committee, we are going to be looking at coal tip remediation as an inquiry. So, we would ask that people send us evidence and participate in that inquiry to make sure that things like this never ever happen again across our country. Thank you. 

So, we now move on to item 2, which is our wildfire resilience in Wales evidence session with the Fire Brigades Union. Bore da, good morning, and thank you very much for coming. If you'd just like to briefly introduce yourselves, that would be very good, and then we'll get into the evidence session. So, I'll start with Steve.

I'm Steve Wright. I'm the elected general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, representing almost 34,000 firefighters across the UK. I joined the fire service in 2001, working in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire fire and rescue services. I've attended wildfires and incidents that we'll be discussing today across my career.

Thank you. 

I'm Gemma Thomas. I'm the regional control representative for Wales for the FBU, and I work in the joint fire control in Bridgend, which is between mid and west and south Wales fire service.

Hello, all. I'm Gareth Tovey. I'm the executive council member for Wales for the Fire Brigades Union. I'm elected by firefighters, our firefighters in control and our officers, to represent all our members here in Wales. I've got over 20 years of operational experience, working in Newport, Cardiff and most recently, up until two years ago, in Caerphilly. It was at that point, then, I was released to undertake this role.

Thank you. And can I just put on record our thanks—I know the committee would want to—to all the fire brigade services across Wales who responded to the wildfires over the summer? We were very keen to have this inquiry, and make sure we spoke to a number of different people to make sure we never get into this situation again, and your experience will feed into a key part of this inquiry. So, I'll now move on to questions from Members, and the Member who'd like to open our session today is Niamh. So, I'll hand over to you. Diolch yn fawr. 

Whoever would like to start, you can carry on.

Yes, sure. So, this summer just gone, I think certainly it would seem like it was unprecedented, but I don't think that it was unpredicted. Quite clearly, if you want to know what conditions were like for firefighters on the ground, I mean, we only need to think back about what it was like in those temperatures, sometimes 40 degrees, just for going about your normal day-to-day duties in normal clothing. If you imagine firefighters were on the side of a mountain in that direct 40 degree sunlight, stood next to a fire, sometimes in full structural firefighting kit, which is like your warmest winter coat and your thickest ski trousers, and they're working a physically difficult and arduous job, I think it was beyond challenging. Hopefully, today, we can talk to you about some of the things that we think aren't in place that should be in place that could start to improve that situation. But, yes, I think, extremely, extremely challenging.

Maybe Gemma can come in, because the initial call that ever comes into the fire and rescue service is taken by our firefighters who work in our control room, and I think that probably sets the tone as to what follows that.

Yes, this was probably my busiest period in my whole career in the fire service. When you think that our average calls—this is just in my control room—are between 200 and 300 calls a day, and at our peak, our highest day, which was 13 August, we had just shy of 2,000 calls put through to our control. We've got staff who are, whilst dealing with those calls, also dealing with the requests that are coming from the fire crews on the incident ground, asking for additional resources, asking for additional agencies to come and assist with their incidents—all of it being done by our control room. And whilst we're having to make those calls and make up for those appliances, the calls are still ringing. The phones were just constantly ringing in the background, and you were just having to answer them as quickly as you could, but then also having to deal with them, to be able glean enough information off them to see whether this was a repeat of the incident that we were already in attendance at, or was this another incident that we needed to attend. All of this whilst trying to make sure that we've got basic cover within the area to cover any other business, because whilst the grass fires were still going on, our house fires were still going on, our industrial fires were still going on, and we had to keep resources available for that. So, it was a logistical nightmare, really, trying to work out where everything was going. Just as soon as you'd get an appliance into an area, that would get taken for something else, and it was the backfilling of all that as well. It was very, very stressful in the control room.

I think, just to summarise some of that, our members are telling us that this has been probably the most challenging period of time that they've been on the front line of dealing with fires. Extremely dangerous incidents, often in remote locations, but also in rural and urban interfaces where they're concerned about losing property, losing life. You have to be hypervigilant at these types of incidents, often with maybe just a junior officer in charge of the fire appliance and three other firefighters spread across large distances. I think that's one of their real concerns: their safety and also their ability to protect the public.

We've carried out a national survey and had a national meeting of our representatives, and the overwhelming response has been that they do not feel adequately trained, equipped, or prepared to respond to and deal with these incidents. I think, for this risk to be unprecedented, as Gareth said, but to be known, for us not to be prepared after the summers we've had in 2022, 2018, and the fact it's been on the national risk register of the Westminster Government since 2013, but we've not really prepared ourselves—. Look, we just hope that next year, firefighters are better protected, communities are better protected, and there is a strategy for how we deal with that. And I think, fundamentally, my final point, it comes down to having more firefighters on the front line to deal with these incidents.

Niamh.

Just following up on that, and I guess you've kind of touched on it really, could you see this coming this summer? I'm guessing, as you were saying, the signs were there. Were you raising these concerns with those in the Welsh Government and the UK Government as well, that these warning signs were happening and that this summer seemed like it was going to be a horrific one for your members?

Yes. We've been raising it for many years, and I think that the turning point was around 2013 when it was on that risk register, and we were saying, 'Look, the UK fire and rescue service is not prepared'. And since that time, even if you only go back to 2013, we've lost firefighters, we've lost firefighters in our control rooms, we've lost firefighters from our fire stations, to the tune of around 400 in Wales—fewer firefighters than we had 10 or 15 years ago. So, it's had an impact. I think people took notice in 2022, when a whole street of houses in London burnt to the ground. But it seemed only then that people started to take notice, but we're four years down the line, and we saw 19 houses, 19 homes destroyed in Stourbridge, not a million miles from here, and communities torn apart. So, I don't think lessons are being learned. I welcome this committee meeting and also the summit being held tomorrow and taking this seriously.

And I think, just to briefly add, we didn't know, necessarily, that specifically this summer was going to turn out like it did, but what we've been clear on for a long time—we produced a report in 2023 called 'Scorched: Firefighters and resilience to wildfires', which we submitted to you, for example—what we've been clear on for a long time is that a changing climate is changing the operational environment in which our members are undertaking their work. And what that is doing—it's happening at the very same time that we've seen a reduction in capacity due to austerity and underfunding—is significantly increasing risk.

We've clearly raised, historically and locally, at the social partnership forum for fire, concerns about capacity in our control rooms. We've raised concerns about recruitment and retention issues with retained firefighters. Retained firefighters are those that are on call from their home or place of work to respond to incidents. We've raised concerns about availability of those fire engines and whether that's communicated to the public, and we've constantly raised concerns, as Steve said, about the underfunding of a vital public service.

Can I ask one more question?

Yes. I think Andrew—. Is it on this point, Andrew? Can I come back to you, Niamh?

You say that austerity is the problem, but you, as a union, did an FOI recently with the Country Land and Business Association, and it indicated, if I take the use of drones, for example, that Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service had 29 drones available to it and a third of the stations that replied—eight out of the 22—had zero drones available to them. So, surely there's an element of not preparing locally, when you've got one fire service that seems to be very well equipped—Dorset—and then other fire services that haven't got any preparations in place. That's local decision making, that is, isn't it?

Can I make a point on that, because I think it's a really important point? When we talk about capacity, we're not necessarily just talking about capacity in an operational response sense. We very much are, but, for example, when I first joined the fire and rescue service, we used to send people on off-road 4x4 driving courses so that the 4x4 vehicles that we had could be taken off-road safely. That stopped around austerity. I'm not necessarily going to tie the two things together. It might seem like these are failures to plan or bad decisions, but a lot of the decisions that have been made have been made under the constraints of not enough funding. For example, there's a borderline long-standing issue in south Wales around firefighters consistently being put in a position where a fire engine only has four firefighters, not five, and not having access to their contractual annual leave. Now, we're talking about needing to free them up for training courses around things like drones if that does turn out to be a solution and is in the role of a firefighter. But the services can't free people to send them on courses because of the lack of capacity to cover them in an operational context.

I appreciate that this is a supplementary, but you raised training. In the same FOIs, you indicate that some fire services—Cheshire, for example—only has 8.6 employees trained, yet Durham, Kent, East Sussex have 100 per cent. So, again, on that scale, local decision making in one part of the country is making sure 100 per cent of fire service operatives are trained fully in wildfire prevention, and then other fire services, for whatever reason—Cleveland, for example—have only got five staff who have been trained. There is an issue about local decision making here as well, wouldn't you agree?

I suppose my point on it is that I think there's been a huge fragmentation in the fire and rescue service, and we're pushing for national UK-wide standards, actually, because I think the point you make around the disparity from one service to another is quite vast, and that's not just with preparedness for wildfires; that's with a whole host of things—the way firefighters are paid, the allowances they get, the training they have, the kit they have. It's so fragmented that I think it's difficult to try and grasp where we are with it. So, we are making the case to the UK Government and devolved nations to say that, actually, the role of a firefighter is the same wherever you are, with different risk, potentially. Actually, the national standards of what we need and what we require need to come together, and I think it's a valid point to say that the differences in some services are vast.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. 

Diolch, Andrew. Back to Niamh.

Thank you. Just one last question on this. You've mentioned a few times how staffing is a massive factor, in the number of firefighters we have. Obviously, the conditions that a lot of the firefighters went through over the summer were horrific. You heard first-hand those stories. Are you worried that if this keeps happening year on year, we're going to see an impact on recruitment and retention numbers even further, if this is going to be the norm now for many of your members?

It could well do for control, if they see that we are taking sustained high levels of calls over that summer period, to the point where people were working extra shifts, longer hours, and just physically exhausted—not exhausted the same as firefighters out on the ground, but you're mentally exhausted just from having to logistically organise the whole of two fire services from our one control room. It could possibly have an impact. It could have people that could then decide, 'Actually, I don't want to be in this job anymore', and then they leave, because they maybe didn't feel supported. I can't speak for other people. Me personally, I love my job, so I'll keep going. And that's why I'm a union rep, to try and help make things better for the workers within the control room. But there could be some people that just think, 'There are other jobs out there where I could possibly get paid similar amounts of money and not have to have the same pressures and stresses'.

I think, certainly, there's likely to be quite an impact on retained members. We have to remember that they, in most cases, work a primary employment outside of the fire and rescue service, and then have been committed on incidents all through the night, to go back to their primary employment, to come back to the side of a mountain. So, I think that that, over time, will certainly make things challenging for them. And I think the chief fire officer for north Wales, in the written evidence, sums it up quite well, which is that operational dedication cannot indefinitely offset structural capacity constraints around funding and investment. So, this isn't just us making this call; this is chief fire officers as well.

I have a really quick question. Realistically, how far away could you rely on support coming from other places, in terms of engines or support? 

At one point—.

Geographically, it seems, in south-east Wales—.

Normally, we have what we call 'mutual aids'. We've got our partnering, or our neighbouring fire services that we can call upon. It's under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, sections 13 and 16, where they can either come in and assist us at an incident, or they're basically coming in and dealing with that incident on their own. We got to the point where we had used that, but then they were getting busy, so they were having to call their appliances back. So, we went through national resilience, which is run through Merseyside fire control, where we actually requested additional fire engines to come and assist with the wildfires in the south Wales area. We had fire engines from Cleveland, London, Cheshire—they were coming from all over, but it was all through this national resilience, mutual aid, that was facilitated by them. But, again, it all came through the joint fire control, so we were having to deal with the logistics of that as well, as well as dealing with the day-to-day business, the fire calls, and all the wildfires.

Prior to going up to Merseyside, if you had help from neighbouring areas, were the fire brigades reacting and coming from mid Wales, north Wales as well?

Yes, because we're a joint fire control, we have that ability to be able to mobilise mid and west appliances into south, a lot easier than us having to ring through to, say, Avon, to request theirs coming through. But, again, we were going through the senior officers in mid and west Wales, to say, 'We need additional appliances to assist with larger incidents. Crews are requesting multiple appliances to come to an incident because the fire is getting close to property'. And we were having to send appliances then from mid and west Wales into the south Wales area to help assist with that.

So, every bit of capacity was totally—

Yes, and then you've got to look at the backfilling side of it as well, because we've got key areas that we have to cover, what we call 'key stations'. So, when you take an appliance out of one area, you then have to backfill to make sure that—. Obviously, it's all done on risk levels within the service and they designate which stations and areas need covering, and then we've got to find the appliances to move into those areas to make sure they're covered.

Thank you. 

I know we'll come back to capacity later with others, so we'll come back to that. 

One quick question I have about your experience on the ground is: it wasn't just you out and about all the time; there were a lot of people from rural communities coming out, farmers and everybody else, so I'm just interested in what firefighters' experiences were of actually working with farmers in certain parts of the country and how that co-ordination worked together. You talk about capacity, and without some of those agricultural contractors coming out to help, I think you would have been overwhelmed. So, I'm just interested in what the view has been of working with those communities as well.

Look, I think we've been quite clear in public about this. We published a letter of thanks to the Welsh public who were superb with our members—providing food, hot drinks, support, kindness. So, our members have been quite clear that they wanted to thank those people. I think, certainly, farmers did play a role this summer. I think they played more of a role in—. North Wales, for example, doesn't have their own water bowsers, so farmers were providing water through equipment that they already had.

But what I think we need to clearly differentiate between is what happened in, what I would argue, loosely, was a state of emergency, a crisis, what happened there to get that done, and then what is an operational plan going forward. For example, firefighters are highly skilled and trained—there are lots of control measures and procedures that are put in place at a wildfire—and farmers aren't. The equipment that the fire service use is regularly maintained and tested so that we know it's available and we know it's safe. We don't quite know that that's the same thing for equipment utilised by the farming community. So, what we're clear on is that, although we're really thankful and grateful for that help, we need to make sure that fire and rescue services have the resources they need to match the risk.

I know you've just walked in, Laura, but—.

Yes, sorry if it's already been covered. Just on what you just said—. Thank you, obviously, to all the brave men and women that fought the fires for us, I'm really thankful about that, obviously, but the farmers did play a big part and, without them, the fires would have got out of control. But also, without their knowledge of their land, that would have been a problem too. So, how is the—? I don't know if it's already been covered—I apologise, Chair, for being late—but how is the fire service now thinking about specific fires and being trained for specific fires like peat fires, which are very different to any fires they're normally dealing with? Diolch.

I don't know. I think that's a question for the fire and rescue services, sorry.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you, and, as I said, we put our thanks on record to all those communities across Wales as well who went out to help.

So, moving on to health impacts now. Niamh, have you've got any more questions? No, diolch. David.

Just on the personal protective equipment, can you tell us a bit about that, in tackling the wildfires? And how does that compare to the equipment you normally use? Is it different?

Do you want me to take that?

You can do, yes.

So, in Wales, there are some differences between the three different brigades. But, essentially, firefighters have two sets of fire kit. One we call structural firefighting kit, which would be the big, gold-coloured, thick uniform that firefighters are wearing. They use that for property fires. It protects you from the heat of the fire to an extent, but it also keeps a lot of heat inside. They also have a second set, mostly, of what is called lightweight PPE. Now that is still quite like a jacket. It's quite warm. I don't think it was specifically designed around wildfires. It was more designed for things like road traffic collisions.

But what we need to be really clear on is that they only have one set of that second set. So, for example, what happened widely across Wales is firefighters would come in on day one, shift one, wear that lightweight firefighting kit, work 12 hours on the side of a mountain, it would get covered in soot and dirt—which we'd like to come on to, but we know that there are health risks for firefighters around that. And then they'd be faced with the choice. They'd arrive back to station, three or four hours after their shift finishes. The night watch isn't there because it's gone back on the same fire that they were on. So, they've either then—. There are different procedures. Well, there's no way to wash that kit. So, either they've got to choose to wear that the next day dirty, and, we would argue, put themselves at risk of exposure to carcinogens, or decide to switch to their structural firefighting kit, which, in our view, is not safe or appropriate to be working in in 40 degrees on the side of a mountain.

Do you think that's having an effect on, I suppose, the mental health of the firefighters—the equipment, the use of that, or not?

I think, over time, it will have an effect on their physical and mental health. It's why I mentioned that point earlier about operational dedication. I've used the phrase I've used the phrase before a lot about how we seem to be in a new normal of a changing climate, but I don't think that we can expect it to become normal, what firefighters had to do to keep the public safe this year. I think we need to provide the funding and investment so that the tools, kit, resources, numbers and PPE can be put in place so that the people who keep the public safe can be kept safe themselves.

We're pulling together some of the data, but we've had firefighters hospitalised, we've had firefighters injured. And I think, when you talk about the mental health impact, in the control room, the capacity and the calls that they were taking and the stress that they were under taking 999 calls—. I've only ever been an operational firefighter, I've not worked in our control room, but I can only imagine taking a call from someone who's about to lose their property and having to deliver the message that there are no fire engines, there are no firefighters, there are no resources able to respond to you. I think that will have an impact, and we know that, from other major incidents that firefighters have worked at and worked in our control rooms and taken those calls—harrowing calls; to say that there is no response is clearly going to have an impact on our members.

Laura.

Yes. I completely agree that it's just not okay not to have the right tools and equipment for the job and sending people out on that front line, whatever fire it is. But, going back to the point that I made when I walked in, also being prepared for the fire that they're facing is really important. Wouldn't you agree that it's important that the fire service and the Government work together to ensure that the fire service is prepared and your members are prepared for all types of fires?

We've put 10 demands forward, which I'm sure you've seen, and one of those is around a national standard of response, but also around training. I've been a firefighter for 25 years and never received specific wildfire training.

Exactly.

Lots of firefighters have had training on a PowerPoint presentation. We speak to colleagues in Europe and also colleagues in Australia, who deal with the bushfires that they do, and they've been trained and educated on these types of incidents. There certainly needs to be a directional change in what training firefighters receive. The risks and threats that are now present in this country have changed over the last 20 years and I don't think the training has kept pace, or the equipment—or the pay, in fact—has kept pace with the role and the job that firefighters do. So, I certainly feel there needs to be specific training and ongoing training as we develop more into the risks that we now face.

Thanks.

Andrew.

Yes. Just going back to the fire service's own FOIs on this information, again highlighting this discrepancy between local fire services, I'd be keen to try and drill down into the Welsh side of it because, obviously, we're a parliamentary committee here in Wales, and I hear what you say about UK national standards, but it would be good to try and understand how the three services were prepared here in Wales.

When you look at the use of PPE, 12 of the 22 services in your FOI indicated they didn't hold any PPE kit specialised in this area, but, yet again, Kent and West Yorkshire issue a piece of PPE kit—or full PPE kit—to every firefighter on duty. So, again, that local ability to do it is there, and I presume that's identified because the chief fire officer in that area said the risk register says this is something we should be concerned and aware of, and yet other chief fire officers in other areas clearly just don't make the investment. So, do we know whether the three fire services in Wales have made any investment in the areas you've highlighted that are deficient in PPE kit or vehicles or drones so that we, as a committee, could make the necessary recommendations?

Yes. So, I think they have made progress—for example, the figures you've just stated say that some fire and rescue services have no second set or alternative lightweight PPE—but I think that it's not enough progress. I want to make that really clear; that is my view. It is nowhere near enough progress. If our members are having to choose whether to wear too hot, unsafe kit or dirty, risk-of-cancer kit, that's not okay. And to fix that problem, to be clear—. I get your point—it's been made in two other questions now—about how this is about decisions, and it might be about poor decisions, but I think you can't assess that without factoring in funding and decisions made under constraints and pressures. That isn't in any way to excuse poor decisions; they should be pointed out and called out, but we should also make sure that decision makers have the resources and the investment so that they can make good decisions, and I think that's a really key point.

But, just drilling down into the three Welsh fire services, given that your FOIs indicate quite clearly that some fire services in England have a good record when it comes to investing in wildfire support to their service, are you aware of the status of those three Welsh fire services? Because, obviously, they come under the Welsh Government, and whatever Westminster recommends—and I noticed the environment committee up there has its report out today on this particular issue—that would be addressing the issues in England. I'm keen to try and understand the preparedness of the Welsh fire services, and your experience in particular, as the Welsh rep?

Yes. Thank you. Could I ask you to clarify 'the status' when you say—

Well, on PPE provision, on drone provision, on training provision. Because, as I said, the information that your own union has put out there has indicated that certain services across the country have invested and have 100 per cent compliance with the kit that's required, the training that's required, and the awareness around it. But I can't find that information when it comes to the three Welsh services, and that's where our responsibility and our focus sits. 

It's different for the three different brigades, definitely. This is where Steve was making the point about national standards. That fragmentation has caused lots of differences across the whole UK. So, for example, north Wales, and, I believe, mid and west Wales, rely on asking the police if they can use their drone for those sorts of drone capabilities, whereas, I believe, south Wales have now invested in a drone capability. But, when you've got 14 wildfires happening at the same time—I mean, you need to look at what that looks like.

One of our demands is a plan, right, around preparedness for wildfires, and I think that's what your question is getting at, and I could support that. I think we do need an assessment of where we're at and what 'good' looks like, and how we move toward it.

So, as things stand, there isn't a Welsh wildfire plan that the three fire services work to that has national standards in a Welsh context. Because, again, the UK Government could set national contexts, but it'd be for the Welsh Government to either agree to adopt those national criteria or set its own criteria.

Sure. I don't know the answer to that. I know there's a Wales wildfire board. If there is a Wales wildfire plan, it has not been shared with me. 

Thank you.

I think that's something we can bring up with other witnesses, Andrew, as they come through as well.

One thing I do want to ask about is—and I know we're running very short on time; time is running away—on responder co-ordination. I'm just wondering how you think the co-ordination works with the local resilience forum, how things work through gold command as well. Do you think all that works effectively in terms of co-ordinating responses, or is it a bit fragmented?

Well, I was only ever a watch manager, so a couple of ranks up the fire service. But I think, within local resilience forums, from my experiences, senior managers within the fire and rescue service bring a wealth of experience in managing incidents, and I think we demonstrated that during the COVID pandemic. So, the local resilience forums, from my understanding, work quite well. I think the fire and rescue service could step into that space a bit more extensively, if that was within our role, and paid accordingly. So, I think that the co-operation at that level is probably quite good, but I'm not sure how that really transcends into operational needs on the ground.

Yes, because I'm interested in how that works. Because when you've got multiple fires going on—as I say, 14 fires going on—across the area, across Wales, and, in certain county areas as well, in Powys, in RCT and certain parts of Blaenau Gwent as well, there were multiple fires going on, and they've all got their own LRFs, how does that co-ordination work? Because there has to be a priority in certain areas, doesn't there? Because if everything's a priority, nothing's going to be a priority, and you're half-doing everything. So, I'm just wondering, from on-the-ground experience, how that co-ordination works and how resources are then moved around with local resilience forums, working with other agencies like the police, the local council, if there's risk to life or homes. If you look at, for example, parts of Blaenau Gwent, which Niamh and others represent, if that crossed the road, you're into the Rassau estate, then, and you could have had a number of houses going on fire. So, I'm just interested in how that works on a local level as to where the priorities actually lie in terms of co-ordination.

I think, respectfully, Chair, we're just not in that room, and we certainly don't get a phone call after a strategic meeting to say, 'Hey, this has been what's decided.' So, I don't think that we can give you the taste of that that you want. I think the FRSs really can.

Is it frustrating, though, on the ground, for firefighters actually on the ground, actually being pulled from pillar to post, or are their experiences being fed up the chain, then, as such, into co-ordination? Is that happening effectively, do you think?

I think it's really frustrating when you're an incident commander, and you ask for 10 fire engines, and you're told, 'Sorry, you can only have seven because that's all we've got.' So, I think there are frustrations there, but—. Yes, I'm not too sure.

Okay, that's fine. No problem. We'll move on now to resource and capacity. I know we've covered this area quite extensively already. I don't know—. There are Members who have indicated—. I know Anna, Niamh and Laura want to speak on this area. Have the areas that you wanted to talk about been covered? I know, Anna, you haven't come in yet.

I've got one that I don't think—

That's fine. If it's something that hasn't been covered, I'm happy to go for it.

Sure. Okay. I was particularly interested in aerial capacity. It seems that, especially in north Wales, then, there were calls for that. Actually, in Wales, we don't have any aerial capacity or helicopters to help challenge—. Maybe we don't need them, like a separate Wales service—maybe it's better co-ordinated across the UK. But we do need to know that there can be some capacity. So, I don't know what your experience was there of how helpful that would be and how that might be—what you need, I suppose.

I think what we've called for is some aerial support that will complement firefighters on the ground firefighting. Because I don't think you can replace firefighters on the ground doing the job that they need to do at the front face of those fires just with aeroplane capacity. We've spoken to colleagues in Europe about some of those issues and that the terrain is somewhat different in terms of the fires that they deal with within Europe compared to what we deal with in Wales and the UK. I think the point that we've made is that there should be an avenue and an opportunity and a strategy that senior officers or incident commanders can call upon that resource, and I don't think that was particularly well managed this year. There were lots of experiences where aerial support was requested and it just didn't arrive, or there wasn't a conduit to deliver it.

But I would stress the point that, when you talk about the example you just gave about potential houses catching fire due to that rural and urban interface, like what happened in Stourbridge, it won't be an aeroplane or aerial firefighting capability that puts out those fires or saves lives, it will be firefighters that do that. And I think it's—. That is why we've made the clear and conscious position we've stated that it should complement the additional resources we need on the ground and to have more of an organised strategy around that, really.

Right, okay. So, it might be different sorts of—. Like we saw in north Wales, I suppose, you might be getting huge environmental damage et cetera, where that could come in, but not necessarily always in other cases.

Yes.

Okay.

Laura.

Obviously, better land management is absolutely key in prevention, going forward, but also it's very key to recognise that most of these fires were arson or human error. I don't see in your 10 points anything to do with the potential of creating more awareness and what you could do as a union, with your members, to look to prevent fires and create more awareness.

Maybe I'll come in first, but I'd welcome Gemma and Gareth's points. What I would say is that as firefighters, over many years, we've done a great job in educating the public, educating in schools, around preventing fires in their homes. The statistics will point to the work that we've done on that and other factors. So, I think there is a space that we can move into to do more prevention, protection work and education, but you need the time and resources to do that. So, when Gareth talks about the cuts and the years of austerity that we faced, that not only impacts the front-line response, it also impacts the wider education work that we do. So, I think that, if we had the resources and the capability to do the education work, we could do that.

I think, with regard to how fires start—and my understanding is there were more arson-related incidents in Wales compared to England, and, clearly, that's something that we need to consider, or you need to consider, why that is—fires do start in a whole host of different ways. We raised concerns about just the banning of barbecues being a bit tokenistic as to, 'This will stop all fires', actually. Because it's the conditions we're now dealing with due to the changing climate, drier, hotter summers and how those fires spread. I don't think there's any denying that. Scientists are pretty clear that we're going to get hotter and drier summers, and it's our members that are on the front line, putting their lives on the line dealing with those.

Could I go back a second to aerial support—what Anna picked up on? You said you're requesting aerial support going up but it never comes back. Is there a communication element there, back to firefighters on the ground as well, of why aerial support cannot be provided? If you look at some parts of the world where I represent, for example, when there were fires on Glascwm—I know others who represent places like I do up in Llangynidr—there were physical places you couldn't get to, and, actually, aerial support can help. But I'm just interested, from your perspective, as people on the ground, how frustrating it is. Do you get explanations as to why things aren't going to happen, or do you just get a simple 'Computer says "no"', and you carry on as you are? I'm just interested in that because it links to a question I'm going to come to later about the Welsh Government, and how they help with other partners. But I'm interested in that point specifically. Do you get communication on the ground, or is it just coming from somewhere else?

Yes, I think it's hugely frustrating when you're tired and you're working really hard, and you don't have, possibly, that resource that can assist in the way you're fighting that fire. I think you're right to point out that, actually, different geographies are more suited to different tactics, essentially. The fire in north Wales, for example, ridiculously hard to get any kit, equipment and people to the seat of the fire, whereas the fires in the south Wales Valleys backed very quickly onto housing. So, that's where you really need those boots on the ground, if you will, to get there and protect houses, and then extinguish the fire.

I think that the committee would find value in asking the fire and rescue services to account for decisions made and when aerial support was requested, because we've had reports that it was requested but that it wasn't available. Now, we don't get the details on why that was the case. 

It's good to know that as well, because one thing from visits that I know a number of Members did was, actually, the communication elements. That's why I talked about co-ordination earlier—people on the ground not getting appropriate communication from people above as to why decisions were being taken. I find it did create a lot of confusion, sometimes, and frustration for people as well.

If I could add, really briefly, I think our tactical officers, our managers who oversee the incidents, are good at communicating with our firefighters. We have to remember that they are also working very, very long hours in very similar conditions to the firefighters on the ground.

Okay, thank you. I do want to move on quickly because I'm worried about time, but, Anna, I can let you come back quickly, if that's okay. 

Okay, really quickly, then, just on things for us maybe to follow up on with the FRS. As you're saying, we know that the risk is increasing year on year, and there are big changes, really, in the way that maybe we might manage it. We need to somehow deal with day-to-day resource constraints, and be investing in different ways of doing things, including things like in the call centres, how much pressure they're under and how that can be managed maybe differently in the future just to take the strain off that. So, there's something about, I suppose, fire and rescue services in Wales—. Do you think—? Are they investing in that leadership and putting in the change that's needed to support you in the future?

In the control room, with us, we need to basically crew up our control rooms. We've got, at the moment, in our control room, in the joint fire control, our minimum crewing is seven on duty at any one time. And we basically had to draw in people during the wildfire season, or people were coming in doing extra shifts, doing longer shifts, and people that had maybe been seconded out to different departments within the service were being drafted back in just so that we had enough people in the control room.

We've got, I believe, around about 18 desks that can be used by us in our control room. Every single one of them was full and we were still inundated. We were still overwhelmed with the calls that we were taking in the control room. We have got the options through BT with Operation Willow Beck, where calls can be, once we get to a point where we—. There are two sides to it. There's the side where we're getting calls, repeat calls for an incident we're already in attendance with, and we can put call filtering in. So, this is through BT, where we give them a set of questions that they can ask that caller to be able to check whether this is one that we're already in attendance at. If it is, it doesn't get pushed through to the relevant fire service. If it doesn't meet that criteria, obviously, it gets passed through to us.

When we get to the point where we're inundated still, even though we've got that call filtering in, we've got the next stage, which is where we declare a full Op Willow Beck, where we basically say we cannot answer all the calls that are coming into our control room. BT will then farm out those calls to neighbouring fire and rescue service control rooms who will answer those calls, but they have to come back to our control room. So, if it's life risk, we've got a dedicated line that they're able to pass that call back to us on. If it's non-life risk, they come through electronically. Then we've got double entry, because it's come through electronically but we've then got to physically enter it into the system to then be able to see, 'Right, is this a repeat of an incident we've been to? Is this a new incident that we need to mobilise to?' To have enough staff to be able to do that, seven on duty isn't enough. I know we've been striving in our control room to increase that number, but it's just the recruitment and retention. You get to a point where you think, 'Right, we should be able to get to maybe a minimum of eight on duty', and then somebody leaves and you're back to square one again. Or you could have possible long-term sickness—you can't predict what's going to happen with sickness—and then that has a knock-on effect on the watch, and again you're back down to your minimum crewing.

You can't sustain people working extra shifts, longer shifts. Our control management team were coming in at 9.00 a.m. and not leaving till 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night, and then coming back in at 9 a.m. again the next morning. That's just to oversee and help between us and the command cell that was set up in there. But then, as a watch manager, I'm doing my shifts, which are a 10.5 hour day and a 13.5 hour night, and you are just mentally exhausted by the time you finish that shift, because you're not only looking at how the calls are coming in and that you're getting the right resources there, but you're also looking at the people management side of it—making sure that people are able to get out of the room to get away from that constant noise of the calls. People have human needs. They need to go to the toilet. Trying to get people out for breaks—you were literally sending people out for 10 minutes at a time, one at a time, just so they could get out of the room. That's not sustainable, going forward, if we have another high-call-volume period.

Just super briefly, obviously it's for them to give evidence, but my best guess is that you will hear the FRSs say that they do want to grow, and they do want to increase capacity, but it's going to require investment.

There are a number of areas we haven't got to yet, but there are some areas that are quite important. One is about land management. John, you wanted to talk on land management.

Yes. There were conversations with Natural Resources Wales, and when we were up in Builth Wells, it became increasingly evident that the quality of the land had been degraded, causing much greater problems. It's how the land is treated, how it's farmed—. Therefore, it could hopefully then reduce the impact of the fire load and increase the ability of the land to hold more moisture. Just looking at the map that we were given, the area that was covered was primarily the higher level land. It's that sort of area, really—. Through conversations with Natural Resources Wales, I know that they have a plan to do something in the area where I live specifically on this, trying to manage land with more animals, increasing the quality of the soil and reducing risks. That was one of the big areas. Will that have any impact, as far as you're concerned?

I think it's really hard to address impact. I think it's fundamentally important that there is a land management plan that takes into account wildfire, but what I do think is that, whilst that plan is being figured out, put in place, developed, we need to make sure that the response element has the capacity to respond.

I totally agree that there is an immediate issue that needs to be looked at, but obviously there needs to be a much longer term solution as well. Would that fit in? Is it something that you noticed in those areas, that the land was actually contributing to the problem, other than just humans causing it?

I'm not sure there's been a detailed look at where these fires took place necessarily and what did have an impact on it. We said back in July, 'We think all nations need to take this seriously and call summits and discuss it.' We're no experts in land management, but actually we think that could be an aid to keeping our members safe and keeping the public safer. I think it's right that those discussions take place and they're asked those questions. If it assists us on the front line with dealing with these incidents, we would support that. We're more than willing to have discussions with people, but we're no experts in that.

No, I understand. Okay, thank you.

That's fair enough. Thank you, guys. It's one of those questions about the fuel underneath, but I can imagine that—. If you don't feel confident to talk about that, that's fine. There's one thing I do want to bring out. We'll bring Paul in, because Paul wants to talk about climate adaptations, and you touched on that earlier a little bit. Paul, do you want to lead on this?

Yes. On that land management, I guess the problem is if we create better access for fire appliances and whatever, that also creates access for people who want to go in and set fires. So, that's just an observation there. 

Obviously, we all know, and I've heard it said, that 2026 might have been the coolest summer we're going to get in future. So, clearly, we've got to do some things, and we will talk, obviously, to the services about that themselves, but in terms of the lead time on new equipment, on training firefighters, if Government turned around tomorrow and said, 'Oh yes, we'll supply plenty of money to do all these things', what do you feel the lead time is on some of those items?

I think certainly that it's a really important question. There will be different lead times for all sorts of different things: fire engines, different bits of kit and equipment, training courses, freeing people to go on them, recruiting and training people. All of those will have lead times. I don't have the details on each line item, but what I would say, and it speaks to your point, is the sooner we start that, the quicker we get to where we need to be.

Does it feel kind of tight for next summer?

I think we're significantly worried. One thing that I'm focused on is that I think this is a bigger question than just wildfires. If not this year, maybe next, the Met Office have been quite clear that we're likely to see flooding events. We've already seen it in Pontypridd, the Rhondda valley, Monmouth and Abergavenny in the last few years. They're similar in the way that wildfires stretch our resources.

As the climate gets warmer, obviously using that heavier PPE to fight, say, domestic fires or whatever, that becomes harder and harder, does it?

It's almost beyond safe now, I would argue. But my 20 years of experience tell me that one pretty good tactic at a wildfire, a grass fire, let's say, might be to allow it to burn to the edge of forestry, and it will stop, because that's always been the case. Now, it's not stopping, because that land in the forestry has dried out, because we didn't have what we used to have, which was two weeks' heatwave, five days' rain, two weeks' heatwave, five days' rain. We had two months of solid heat with very little rain. So, it's very important to understand that the operational conditions, the landscape, were like a tinderbox at times, and that meant that wildfires spread. Wildfires that could have been dealt with historically with two fire engines for two hours ended up with 10 for a week, because it spread so quickly and reached such an intensity.

And then the risk of it entering residential areas is, apart from the environmental damage—. And I guess there's a circular thing that happens: when we lose the ability to sequester carbon by having a wildfire, we create more global warming. 

Plus the potential impact on water retention for flooding during winter months.

Yes.

Happy? Lovely. Good. We're entering the last bit of our evidence now, but I'll bring Niamh in, because Niamh had some questions about forecasting and communication. I'll bring Niamh in, and then I'll probably ask some final questions, and then we'll round the session off. Have you got a question on this point specifically, Andrew?

No, it's a new point.

Okay, I'll bring Niamh in, and then I'll come to you, and then I'll come back to myself.

I'll be really quick, because I'm conscious of the time. The Wales wildfire board manages public communication as well, and there's the campaign, the annual Wildfire Wise, which replaced Operation Dawns Glaw. I was just wondering how effective you guys found that campaign. Are you going to be pushing for it to be evaluated or to be looked at again? What are your thoughts on it?

As a union official, I hadn't heard of the campaign, or as a member of the public. I'd heard of Dawns Glaw. That was some inter-agency work between police and fire, where they would do patrols. I'd argue it was quite limited because of capacity, but what I would say is that we're in one of two positions. Either none of that worked, and that's why this summer happened, or it did work and, if we hadn't been doing it, this summer would have been worse. I suppose that's something that someone needs to make an assessment of.

So, you guys weren't familiar with it at all, that campaign. No. Okay.

I'm aware of the police and fire work, but that is quite limited.

Andrew.

An area we haven't touched—and I appreciate that this may not be your level of expertise as such—is social media and the copycat type of crime, which is the best way to describe it, that we see constantly. Have you a view on the rules and regulations around social media sites governing promotion, if you want, and then following into copycat fires? Because obviously, a lot of this is done for effect by people trying to replicate what they've seen on social media and create another fire in their locality. So, do you have any thoughts or views on the way that the social media companies operate when they host images of these wildfires going on?

I don't think we've given too much consideration to that at this point in time. Maybe it's something that we will consider down the line. But our focus has been on trying to make sure that our members are kept safe and the response element ultimately. So no, I don't think we've—

Yes, I agree with you about keeping members safe—that's vital—but what we're trying to do is trying to stop the fires in the first place rather than put them out. And there is evidence, as I understand it, of copycat-type events. 

I don't know. 

Okay, fine. Fair enough. 

Laura.

Thank you, Chair. Just building on that, going back to the point that I made earlier about education, education is absolutely key on this. And you did say you had a role to play in that, but you haven't got the funding, perhaps, and resources to go into schools and do that. Is that right? You are doing something currently? The fire service are? You are?

The fire and rescue service have done that for around 20 years. At the moment, certainly here in Wales—it's the same for the UK, I'm sure—when firefighters aren't on operational calls, they're in your communities, in houses, educating people on fire safety, fitting smoke alarms. They're in your schools at key stages 1 and 2, talking to kids. And don't forget how vitally important, as a role model, our members, firefighters, are for those young children. They're impactful—

Absolutely they are. Sorry to interrupt you. But building on what Andrew said then, there's an opportunity in what you're already doing, isn't there, in your educational outreach, to build in TikTok and awareness campaigns on that, and the fact that the mountains are a tinderbox and the risks associated. So, maybe we don't need to build something new—it can already be filtered through what you're already doing.

I think so, but I think it is. That's my point. I think we already talk about the risk of wildfire at the school visits. We already talk about how it might seem okay to set a fire because no-one's going to get hurt in a rural location, but that is drawing 10 fire engines that can't be at a house fire where someone might get killed. We give these messages already. So, whatever we're doing is either having an impact and that's priced into what we saw, or isn't working and we need to reassess. But we definitely have space in there.

I also think, and this is maybe wider, that we need to look at facilities in local areas, like youth clubs and sports clubs that have been cut over 15 years, which mean that young people don't have a place to be—libraries, for example. I think they're really important questions. 

Thank you. A couple of final questions from me on the Welsh Government's role. One thing that I'm sure all Members and people have heard is exactly where the Welsh Government fit in all this. So, I'm just interested from your perspective: where do you see the Welsh Government sitting with wildfire management and the arrangements across the country?

I'd make one point that I think that Westminster need to fund the fire and rescue service better, and I think Wales fire and rescue services need to be funded better than they are. Because I think everything we've tried to outline today is due to a lack of funding. A lack of investment over many years has put us in this position we are in now. Gareth may have more information on the Government element of what they can and can't do around the devolved element of fire with regard to wildfires, but I think our ultimate point, and the message I think we want to get across at the moment, is the lack of funding and investment. I think that is down to Westminster to make sure they're taking note. We've got their summit on Friday and we'll be making that point there to make sure that there is investment across into the devolved nations. 

I think it's really important that the Welsh Government set the national framework that then local authorities and fire and rescue authorities work to. Ultimately, local authorities fund fire and rescue services, and the Welsh Government in some way fund those local authorities. Where I think there's real risk here is that we end up with a game of ping-pong of, 'Well that's for you.' 'Oh no, well, that's for you'. 'Well, we don't—.' What we need to do is we need to see leaders across this whole sector focused on keeping the public and firefighters safe and putting in place a real plan, which, to be clear on our position, must come with significant investment. 

I'll just pick up on Andrew's point, and this is my final question to you. We do have a fiscal framework that we have to exist within in Wales. There is no magic money that can just be invented from somewhere, and a cut from one place means that something else suffers. So I'm just interested from you—. Andrew talked earlier about local decision making. If no additional funding was going to come, what tangible differences could be made around local decision making to release some finance to help in other areas? Other witnesses I've heard from during my time in the Senedd have asked for more money—which is lovely, everybody wants more money—but how could things be changed within your existing package of funding to make things better in terms of wildfires?

I don't think it can, and I want to be really clear about that. And I want to be really clear about another thing, which is that we think that where we stand right now, there is an unacceptable level of risk to both firefighters and the public, and we think that that definitely needs investment to fix. Investment from a Government level is about political choices. So, if a political choice is made not to provide that investment, then that is a choice to accept that level of risk, which we talk about as unacceptable. I want to be really, really clear on that.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our evidence session with you this morning. Can I just thank you on behalf of the whole committee for giving your evidence today? It was very thought-provoking, I'm sure, for all of us. Just to let you know that a copy of the transcript will be sent to you just to check for accuracy, and hopefully that will be okay. And with that, Members, we're going to move into a very short break now, so I'll just move the meeting into private. 

Good morning and welcome back to our committee meeting this morning. We are now into agenda item No. 3, which is the wildfire resilience in Wales evidence session with local authorities and Natural Resources Wales. Joining us here is Dominic. He's an executive director of national operations, Natural Resources Wales. And online we've got Steffan Jones, who's the head of department for highways engineering in Cyngor Gwynedd, and Neil Jones, who's the head of public relations and resilience at Torfaen County Borough Council. Welcome, all. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. 

We will move straight now into questions from Members, and I note that there are a number of questions that people would like to lead on. The first area is on general impacts, and I'll hand over to Niamh. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch. And just to cut across, for housekeeping, I'll start in the room and then go online. Is that okay?

Yes.

Lovely. Thank you. 

Okay. So, yes, 15,500 hectares in Wales burnt, as you said. There are some particular risk factors in Wales. So, there are large areas of forestry, much of which we're responsible for—the Welsh Government woodland estate—which are close to centres of population, particularly the south Wales Valleys. And then there are large areas of beautiful uplands, and they also tend to be at risk of wildfires. So, I think what we saw was the impact of climate change—a very hot summer. Remember, though, that the really big fires in Wales were not summer wildfires; they were spring wildfires. So, the Elan valley fire, which was one of the biggest in living memory, was a spring fire. That was in April—not a summer fire. It was the weather.

So, there's climate change and then there's the weather. So, the weather hit Wales. We were unlucky as well; some of this is random. So, in other years, Scotland has got it really badly. If the hot weather had been further north, Scotland would have had it worse than us. But I do think there are some things about our landscapes that make our landscapes at risk of wildfire. And when you have the conjunction of climate change and then the weather, and then there are also some other behaviours—some of the arson behaviours, particularly in the south Wales Valleys—that are particularly problematic. 

So, I think those are the reasons why, in Wales, we had a really bad fire season this year.

Anybody online want to come in on this point? Na? Steffan. 

Yes, the only thing I would add would be that we do get lots of tourists, especially in north Wales. And that, in itself, does bring with it other risks associated with the topic that we're discussing today. 

Yes. Laura, I know you want to come in.

Yes, I was reading some interesting statistics that grassland, woodland and crop fires, the number of them, had actually gone down until last year, until 2025. But the number of arson fires have gone up in Wales. Is that—? Do you still think that's climate change, or do you think it's something that we need to look at in terms of tackling arson, but also tackling land management to ensure that fires don't get out of control like they did this summer? I'm sure we'll move on to that as we go on, but do you think that's something—? What do you think about those statistics?

So, it depends on how far back you go. So, in the south Wales Valleys, the campaign that the fire and rescue services and the police have been doing to reduce arson has actually been quite successful, but there has been an upward trend in recent years, which is problematic. It's not as bad as it was, say, 20 years ago, I'd say, although that's not necessarily something that we'll celebrate; it's still pretty bad. 

In terms of the other things that you mentioned, you'll hear that my theme is: yes, we need all of that, we need the whole system, we need a whole load of partners, a whole load of actors to work on this. On the campaigns against arson, there is evidence that they are successful. So, there's a question about redoubling efforts. 

In terms of the area that's burned, I think that is the impact of climate change. I think that's what we're seeing. So, we've got drier areas that are more at risk of wildfire, and then, as I said, we had particularly bad weather for wildfire this season.

Niamh.

I guess, as well, with it being such a high percentage, 57 per cent, have you done formal assessments to determine what damage has been done by these wildfires yet? Or is that going to be a longer term plan? Because, obviously, it's quite significant, isn't it, the damage? I'm not sure, in the time frame, if you've had the chance to do that yet, in local authority and also in NRW.

So, for us, we do both a rapid assessment, particularly for the land in our care. So, we have some pretty good information on the impacts. So, 750 hectares of the land that we're responsible for has been damaged—mainly forestry, some peatland. We're beginning to look at the costs. So, the costs of that, the costs of the whole incident for us looks between £3 million and £5 million, that kind of cost.

For the landscapes that are not in our care, for the first time this year, we're doing a more systematic analysis of the protected sites. So, 23 sites of special scientific interest, protected sites, designated sites were damaged, and we have already started a systematic survey of those. That will take some time because the initial surveys, the walkover surveys, will tell us where there is likely to be problems, particularly damage to designated features. And then that will tell us where we need to go back and look again. But we won't really know until the spring, until we get the spring flush.

The end of October is when we'll have a properly systematic report about the impacts of the wildfire season on the land in our care. But we've got some good evidence coming in at the moment about that.

A question from me, really, is—. We've focused on Natural Resources Wales, but I'm interested in the impact that it's had on local authorities as well—a general impact on your budgets, how you're planning in the future from a local resilience element, for example. I know, Neil, you're the resilience lead in Torfaen, so maybe I could ask the question of you, and then maybe Steffan after, just how your experience has been of all this.

Yes, okay. Well, very impactful. The fire started in Torfaen on 19 July and ran until the end of August. But we're still very heavily involved in the recovery work. The council has allocated £50,000 to support the recovery of the common, something that was not budgeted for, and will only really scratch the surface of the recovery work needed on the common, working with the commoners, working with the Blaenavon local recovery group. That money has started to be allocated to immediate works that needed doing, particularly drainage. A significant amount of natural drainage was damaged by the wildfire and the peat fire. A lot of peat was burnt on the common, and it has turned around 220 acres of the 700 acre site into some really badly damaged earth, which is now very sludgy with the rain that has subsequently turned that ash into a sludge. The drainage work is particularly important because, due to creating some of the fire breaks on the site, it damaged the natural watercourses and rerouted watercourses. So, immediate work has been undertaken to reroute that water back into sinkholes, into natural fissures on the land to avoid it being washed away. So, the immediate work was to replenish the water table and stop that water now running different routes off the mountain and down into the water systems, the local river network, where we wouldn't want it to go. So, that's the immediate work.

The recovery group are looking at, then, a range of impacts, whether they're human, the infrastructure, environmental, economic and reputational. Some of the recovery work is short-term, immediate work we can undertake. Some of it will be midterm and some of it will be very long term. The advice we have from the people who manage this land, the commoners, who are exceptionally knowledgeable about land management, is that this common will take a significant amount of time to recover.

Thank you. Steffan, have you got anything you'd like to add?

[Inaudible.]—Neil. But just to add to that, we are undertaking a survey at the moment of the actual cost of dealing with the emergency for future issues. Those relate to road closures, traffic management and how we went about putting those things in place. Neil mentioned environmental damage, and it will be interesting to see how the fire has affected some of the drainage issues. We're coming up to the winter season now, there's a storm coming on Friday, so it'll be interesting to see what impact the fires have had in relation to any flooding issues we get, especially in the areas around Harlech and Trawsfynydd, where we saw the fires here in Gwynedd.

Diolch yn fawr. Niamh, and then I'll come to Laura.

Just following up from the local government perspective, prior to the wildfires, I'm sure you couldn't have imagined the scale that it was going to be—I don't think anyone could have—but did you have plans in place, as local authorities, for the possibility of wildfires? Did you see this threat maybe coming or did it catch you off guard?

Who wants to go? Don't be shy.

I'll go first. I don't mind going first. No, we didn't have a local authority wildfire plan, but one is now under way, which we'll work on over the next few months, ahead of any potential severe weather, severe fire situations next spring, next summer. Fire plans are the territory of the fire brigade in general, but I also don't believe that there was a wildfire plan. I think in your earlier session, you may have established there wasn't a national wildfire plan, and I'm not sure there was a local wildfire plan either. Certainly, the fire service work and liaise with our local commoners around what they can do as far as land management, which is, from what I understand, very limited now, with a very limited window for controlled burns. That, I think, is such a small window now that if the weather works against the commoners, that now has become almost an ineffective way of managing the land. But, no, we didn't have a local wildfire plan.

Steffan.

Yes, if I can come in. So, similar to Neil, we didn't have a wildfire plan. We do have a severe weather plan, we do have a winter maintenance plan. But we are working—. I'm part of a group with Welsh Government colleagues and we are looking at a resilience Wales document, which we hope will capture all in regard to severe weather, wildfires and everything. So, that's a piece of work that's ongoing at the moment. We do hope to have a draft of that report to be shared with colleagues within local authorities within the next couple of weeks.

Lovely. Diolch yn fawr. Laura, is it on this point?

Yes, just on this. As the local Member in Monmouthshire and Torfaen, I'd like to start by thanking Torfaen for stepping up and giving that £50,000. But it is such a small amount in terms of the damage done and what needs to be done, it's not going to go anywhere near rejuvenation, but it is under that flood prevention and that run-off that's a real threat to the urban area of Blaenavon, of course. So, I was just wondering, do you think there's more of a role to play? Because not all councils stepped forward and gave some money towards this—like Monmouthshire, for example. Do you think there should be more of a sort of united approach across surrounding councils to these wildfires? And it does seem to be that NRW—I've got a question to you—has been found lacking in this area in terms of the contact and the advice being given to the commoners, from conversations I've had with them on that, on how to utilise the money in the best way possible. It's been left to them to make the decisions, which is—. They know the land, but maybe there's a role for you too. Thanks. Diolch.

Dom.

Yes, certainly, I can look into that particular one. But, yes, I think it's important that, whatever we do, we do it in a co-designed sort of way. So, it's not for us to impose a solution, but it is, you're right, for us to make sure that the right advice is there.

So, there is plenty of advice that we have got available about how to manage recovery from a wildfire incident. We are upping that right now. So, we have an initiative looking at being able to assess the vulnerability of different sites. So, on the land in our care, we're quite mature on that. Beyond the land in our care, we're looking at a way of giving local authority colleagues, and others, advice on assessing the vulnerability of a site. The real key thing is to get the plans there in advance and get the management in advance. So, what, I think, we'd really like to do is to encourage, say, the commoners at Blaenavon, to think, yes, about recovery, but think about recovery in the long term, so what they recover to is a type of land management that will be more resilient to wildfires.

John.

I was fortunate enough to speak to one of your colleagues a few months ago, probably just before the worst of all this happened, and I'd actually managed to speak to him on one particular issue, which was completely the total opposite of where we are now, in terms of fisheries around Gower. But I was lucky enough to keep prodding, and he came back with a plan and an experiment that you're conducting in Gower, which they were in the process of getting funding for, which, essentially, was exactly what we had been told was needed when we were in Builth. Now, I know that was coming up fairly shortly, and he did say that he would keep me involved at that point, because that's my area. But it's something that would be really important, I think, to all of us, because if you were already ahead of the game in terms of land management, in terms of getting sufficient numbers of cattle, horses and sheep to graze an area substantially more—and, working with the commoners, as I had there, that was the solution that was totally given—. But there are a number of problems that relate specifically to this, inasmuch as there are 120 commoners in Gower, but only about seven have actually taken up the use of it. So, it meant there weren't enough people to actually put enough animals there.

Now, restrictions—. We were talking about bluetongue earlier in the year. One of the ideas that we talked about was getting people who bought houses that had commoners' rights that weren't using them to maybe use the land to allow young people in the area to start using their ability. And this is something that he was talking about as well. But, with the bluetongue thing coming in, it's quite a dangerous situation where Government would need, somewhere, to be able to step in to allow this to happen. And I should imagine, on common land, this is a very common problem, and, until that experiment goes ahead, and whether you can get enough people to do it, I suppose everything that we're looking at here in terms of the state of the land can't be tackled. So, it's pretty much a real pinch-point.

Can I just say that we'll come on to land management later? I know it's a very important point you raised, John, but I think other Members want to come in on that. I think we'll lead up to that, if that's okay, and we can come back to that. Because I know Members do want to—excuse me, I've got a frog in my throat this morning—talk on environmental elements first, if that's okay, then we can move on to the land management part. So, I think, in fairness, Paul wanted to touch on this area. So, if we go back now—. Not to dismiss the point, John, but if we can go through in that order—

No, that's fine.

—that'd be helpful for me, thank you, as well. Thank you. Diolch. Paul.

Dominic, has any assessment been made so far of the impact of wildfires on endangered species? And particularly endangered species that were—perhaps they might have been the few places that they existed in Wales. Has any work been done on that so far?

So, we're in the process of doing that. So, this is the first time we've looked at this and thought, 'These impacts, they're big enough and it's risky enough, and, because of climate change, we need to get still more systematic about it.' So, we have got a programme where we're going out and visiting all 23 of the sites of special scientific interest that have been burned. There are some early signs. So, there are some examples. So, the Rhinog national nature reserve, with the Rhinogydd wildfire there, I was just there the other week, in fact, looking at that. It's really interesting; it's greening up, incredibly. Nature is incredibly resilient, and bounces back. But, for example, there are some rare assemblages of species that live in the boggy bits between the rocky shelves. We're worried about those, but we won't know until the spring. What the initial walkover has told us is that's what we need to go back and look at again. The pattern that we see is—. As I say, nature is remarkably resilient; it can recover. It can take years to recover. The problem is where you get repeated damage, and it's repeated damage on top of attrition—so, where you get a wildfire, then intense rainfall and erosion against a background of attrition, such as overgrazing, or the wrong sort of grazing, or atmospheric nitrogen pollution is a particular problem as well. That's where you start to see a collapse in the nature value of these things. Remember, wildfire is natural; it's a natural part—. These are not natural fires; these are nearly all accidental or deliberate, but it's a natural part of the ecosystem—

Provided it doesn't happen too often.

—and, given a chance—yes—nature can recover. So, the short answer is that it's too early to tell. There are risks, but remember how resilient nature is if you give it a chance.

Any more questions?

Yes. So, just moving on to the flooding question, obviously, we've talked about the fact that we've lost water absorption, particularly on higher ground. I understand what was said earlier about trying to get it into natural fissures and things, but it is still going to come down in greater quantities, I think. Have flood—. I guess this is for the local authority people as well. Have flood preparedness plans taken account of that yet?

That's a really good question. At our level and our responsibilities for floods—so, main river flooding and supporting local resilience forums—probably not on that level of detail. But I do think it's—. It was music to my ears to hear local authority colleagues talking about how they are looking at that and thinking about that. So, locally, there could be risks, and I would encourage that local level resilience to be looked at.

Are there any comments from people online on the areas that Paul has covered so far?

Only one comment, which—. I'm not a land manager, but, spending numerous meetings with land managers and commoners, the only thing that we're or they're concerned about is that the environmental recovery is being dominated once again by bracken, and bracken is not the friend of the common. So, it's the bracken that is restoring quickly, and it was the bracken that was the significant fuel in the fire. So, that's a bit of a concern, and then how they're able to treat the bracken is a concern. I know the council has purchased a very robust flail. The ground is incredibly stony, incredibly difficult to flail, but mechanical is the only option at the moment in the absence of a chemical solution.

So, that work is taking place, but it takes a long time for the heather to restore. So, something is needed to bind the soil quickly and a solution to that. I believe we're expecting a site visit with NRW colleagues to talk about that, but the window for doing that has also either gone or is very small. But, without something that's going to bind the soil, heavy wind or rain is just going to wash that ground downstream, without some intervention.

Lovely. Steffan.

I was just going to add, as I said previously, that the loss of soil, organic matter, can reduce water-holding capacity. So, that's something that we are looking at closely with colleagues in NRW on a local area basis—so, looking at the effects of the winter storms now coming in and what effects those fires have had on the resilience of the water systems, going forward.

Lovely. When bracken was mentioned, Andrew and I both jumped up in our seats, because we're probably thinking the same thing, but I'll let Andrew come in first, and then I'll come to Laura.

Well, I was just going to make the point, given that the two bodies we have in front of us—the local authorities and NRW—would be integral to, obviously, land management decisions, with coming up with plans to manage these common areas along with the commoners, that the thought of having to deal with the bureaucracy that you guys have to deal with, with the legislation and everything, to get quick decisions, terrifies me as a farmer, to be honest with you.

But I'm just wondering: could you give us an indication of how long it takes to put these management plans in place in response to, obviously, the concerns that we've heard about water run-off because of the damage of the wildfires, and, indeed, making preventative measures stick, so that the grass is kept low with stocking density limits as well? Because one thing, when I've spoken to a couple of the commoners up on some of these sites, is that they say they just get run round in circles and give up and just don't bother challenging NRW, in particular, because they can't get decisions.

Most of the kinds of things that you'd want to do are not necessarily caught by the regulation. I think that the barriers to the kind of land management that would reduce fire risk are more systematic. They're more to do with the economics and the way in which—. So, commoners' rights are incredibly important. They're also quite delicate. We have to be really careful about how we meddle with those. But they can have some perverse outcomes as, John, you were talking about. There's no blame attached to any of that, by the way.

But, for me, one of the key things I think we've got to look at is how does that whole business model of upland land management work in Wales. Because we want to see a whole variety of types of land management—for example, extensive grazing by cattle. Cattle grazing is a great way of dealing with bracken, but it's no good us saying that if farmers and commoners can't make a livelihood out of that. So, I think, in a way, the regulatory barriers—. We're working on it. We're working on reducing that. Part of my portfolio is the whole pace and predictability of our customer service—it's really important that we get that right. But I think more influential is that business model of how the economics of upland land management works.

So, we've set out in the 'Healthy Hillsides' report, which I think you've got, which is a partnership report that we've got—. For example, there's a section there about the kind of land management that we think would make these areas more resilient. And I think the key thing for making that work is more to do with the overall economic system—potentially, the sustainable farming scheme could be really helpful—and the markets that are available to farmers trying to produce the kind of product that would come off from that kind of land management. And other forms of developing how, say, commoners can work together, in a way, are even more influential than the regulation side of things. Most of those activities are not necessarily captured with a regulatory barrier.

I'm just going to use the Chair's prerogative quickly, Laura, because, on the point of bracken, which was raised, as someone who's spent a lifetime, probably, gathering sheep off a hill that's full of bracken—. You mentioned about cattle, and I don't disagree, it's a way of dealing with it, but no-one's going to go into cattle in the way they would, especially with some of the regulatory burdens and TB requirements that are put on them currently. One of the biggest tools in the arsenal of dealing with bracken has now been banned, which was Asulox, so people can't use it anymore. I'm just wondering, from your perspective—. We do know that bracken smothers the ground, we do know it's a natural fire starter as well when it dries out and dies underneath, so I'm just wondering how you think that could be managed, considering one of the biggest tools in the arsenal of dealing with bracken has now been banned, and removed from the market.

It is a real challenge. If you look through our 'Healthy Hillsides' report, that's why we've suggested that a range of different types of grazing is needed. That's the key thing. There's also, as you said, some machinery. The trouble with machinery is just the cost, isn't it? It's not producing anything; it's not building into livelihoods.

The other thing to look at—. We're not advocating afforestation, large-scale tree planting, but the role of scattered broadleaf trees I think is also an area to look at. So, our overall message on resilient land management, Chair—maybe there's a time to get really into land management, but—is we think that variability in the landscape is the really important thing. So, you both reduce the fuel load and also you break up the different types of fuel load. It means that, when you're faced with the kind of weather we saw in the summer, different bits of the land react in different ways, and it doesn't all become vulnerable to wildfire in the same way. That's the kind of thing that we want to see, but it is a real challenge.

I know Niamh has some questions on the environmental part, but I'll get Laura in and then I'll come back to you, Niamh, to round this bit off. Is that okay?

I did have a question on environmental impact—

There we are. Lovely, carry on.

—but I can't not talk about bracken. If we're going to talk about it now, I'd like to talk about it. I mean, it's obvious there needs to be more livestock on the hills. Obviously, rolling we've got to use in order to control it as well. There is new technology in terms of something coming up that's going to help us, which will replace the spray that was banned, and that can't come soon enough. I know it's been rolled out in some areas across the UK. It absolutely needs to be controlled. One of the biggest criticisms, when I visited the commoners on top of Blaenavon mountain—in fact, I'm going to have to say it, and I feel bad, as I don't mean to put this on you—was a criticism of the NRW-controlled land up there, where the bracken was out of control. As the wildfires were spreading, the risk there, because of the bad land management of that site, was a very high risk. In fact, it would have spread even worse on that mountain and would have gone towards urban areas. So, that is something, your own land management of your own parts of your land, as well as working with commoners, that needs to be looked at.

On the environmental side of stuff, the biggest and the worst thing that's happened—I think it's just absolutely devastating—is the fact that our uplands were the carbon captures, where all the carbon was captured, and so much of that was destroyed. Have we done an assessment on that impact, please?

No, not yet. That kind of assessment is happening. There are various research universities looking at this. There's a unit in Swansea that does a very good job of looking at that sort of thing. Our current focus in terms of the land that's not in our care is on the impact on biodiversity at the moment. In your inquiry, I'd encourage you to look at the work that's been done. There's a unit in Swansea that's done some really good work on the carbon impacts.

That's the biggest impact, yes.

Can I just come in on what Laura said there on the livestock? It feels, from what I'm hearing, that there are chemical—. Well, there were chemical solutions, but not now, and machinery might not be economical. It's cattle that are the nature-based solution for managing bracken, as it were. But, as you say, people are then worried about TB restrictions. There's something here that we need to look at in the round, including how we're addressing TB, so that actually we can get cattle, perhaps, up into those place. So, it's livestock, but it's the right livestock in the right places, rather than just thinking, 'We need to get loads more livestock'. There's something about the environmental solutions that are more balanced and nuanced, I suppose—one or the other.

Yes.

Really quickly, Niamh, I know you've got some questions, but I'm conscious that colleagues online haven't had a chance to respond to anything that's been said yet. Is there anything you'd like to add? If not, I'll go back to Niamh.

Only quickly to reiterate what Laura said, which was the feedback from our commoners. I think they would advocate for some form of reward, in what they receive, for the farmers who actually turn the livestock out on the common, rather than simply paying farms for holding common rights. So, it's some form of incentive to keep livestock grazing. We've come to that, and it's a very key component, that livestock will play a role in keeping bracken down—not necessarily eating it, because I understand they don't particularly like it, but trampling it down and keeping it from growing. So, it would appear that more livestock on the common is going to be really important.

Diolch. Niamh, back to you.

Diolch, Gadeirydd. There are two areas that I just want to touch on. The first one, when you're doing your impact assessment, will you be looking at water quality? Something that I heard, as, obviously, we know that there's ash that's turned into sludge and, when there's rain, it's going into the water system. In Llangynidr, we heard about it going into the reservoir that they've got there and I'm sure there'll be other examples of where that horrible stuff that has come from the fires is now, potentially, going into our rivers and so on. So, I was just wondering if you're going to be doing that impact assessment on water as well.

The second one, which might be more for local government, but I'm not sure, as it might tie into NRW as well, is the air quality and the impact on the air due to these wildfires. That statistic about Torfaen really stands out to me. I think they said it was the fourth highest in the world when it came to, I think, the carbon emissions. So, have local authorities done those impact assessments on how the wildfires have affected air quality in the local authorities? Are you going to be doing further work on that as well, because, again, if we keep seeing this, obviously the air quality in those specific areas is going to get increasingly worse as well? So, just two areas.

That's fine. Shall we start with the previous one and give Dom a rest for a minute?

Yes.

So, we'll start with local authority colleagues and then we'll come back to Dom. Who wants to kick off? Steffan.

Yes. Certainly, the air quality was an issue at the time of the fires and it's something that we need to have a proper look at. It would form part of any fire plan or any plan that we have, going forward, with respect to monitoring and having a robust regime in place.

Neil.

We obviously suffered several weeks of the prevailing wind blowing smoke from Blaenavon and Cwmavon down almost over the entire length of the borough and further afield. We did have very high readings and we were, obviously, taking advice from Public Health Wales. It was a natural item that was being burned, so there weren't significant concerns about what was in the air, except for those people who would have respiratory problems and conditions. And the messaging was to close windows and doors, but we were also having the hottest summer on record and everyone wanted to fling open windows and doors to try and cool down, particularly overnight. So, we didn't have specific air monitoring, but we did have local stations that gave us those readings that showed incredibly high levels of particles in the air. But, during the summer, we didn't stand up an air quality monitoring cell, and I'm not sure whether that would have told us anything that wasn't being told from local professionals.

Lovely. Thank you. Dom, back to you.

One of our roles during an incident—. We have an air quality monitoring service and an air quality cell, but that decision is made with local resilience forum partners, whether to stand them up, depending on the risks. So, we can stand it up if it's needed.

Just on your question about water quality impacts, off our land, away from the land in our care, the focus of our efforts at the moment is on the impact of the designated features, which are mainly biodiversity features. But a part of that assessment is what is now the overall condition of that site. And part of that question, in terms of condition, is: is that site carrying on providing the kind of benefits that we want it to provide, of which water quality would be one? I'm not aware whether we or any of the research institutions are taking the opportunity to look at the actual impact on water quality downstream. There will be places where that could be really beneficial to do. So, it's something that I can take back and ask my colleagues—whether, in our partnership, particularly with universities, we're pointing out where there are opportunities to look at that.

Lovely. Thank you. We'll move off this bit for a second to give people a bit of a break on the environmental stuff and we'll come back to it towards the end of the session. I think David's got some questions he'd like to ask about responder co-ordination.

Yes. Can I just say something back on bracken, sorry, just really, really quickly? The other thing, about bailing it and reusing it is another thing that, in this area, in Brecon anyway, is something—

Used to go under our cattle, once upon a time.

Yes. So, there we are. Back to just the co-ordination and the effectiveness of the Wales wildfire board—your views on that, really. 

The Wales wildfire board, for what it does, is really good. I used to be on it in my previous role. Natural Resources Wales is currently chairing it. We take it in turns with the fire and rescue services to chair it. It's a really good partnership opportunity. We have a wildfire charter, which is really strong. We help organise the Wildfire Wise campaign every year. It's a good way of sharing learning, making sure our communications are consistent.

I think there is a really good question about could it be doing a different, stronger role in co-ordinating preparedness, response, recovery and the kind of long-term changes, say, in land management that we need to be seeing. To do that, it would need proper resourcing. It would probably need a different chair. I'm not saying we're bad at chairing it, but I think it might need a Welsh Government chair or an independent chair, something like that, and it would need a properly resourced secretariat. At the moment, it's a thing that allows us to have really good conversations with partners. It's not a thing that enables those partners to get together and to co-ordinate action, and the kind of action that I think we need.

The other thing that is possibly missing is the local authorities and maybe the local government association. I don't know what you—

Yes, certainly. I'd say, right now, as they're local resilience forum partners and we work really closely with local authorities, the local level and the Welsh Local Government Association in all sorts of ways, if they wanted to come and join us right now, they'd be very welcome. Yes, they would be needed.

Thank you, David. I've got a couple of questions, and I think Niamh's got a quick question and Laura, and, between the two, I'll bring local government colleagues in and then go to Laura. Niamh.

It's just quickly tying in what you said about the Wales wildfire board. When we had FBU in just before you, they'd never heard of this Wildfire Wise campaign, which I think is quite concerning when they're the ones on the ground who are going to be tackling those wildfires. So, I was just wondering are you concerned about that. Do you think there might be a deep communication problem if that essential campaign that's being done by the board to tackle wildfires, the FBU don't even know about it?

We have changed the name recently. It was—

Dawns Glaw.

Dawns Glaw, yes. So, that—

When did it change?

—may be the confusion. I think we might have changed it last year, I think.

It's still a year.

Yes, that's interesting. I wasn't aware of that.

None of them had heard of it. So, are you going to take that away?

Yes, I will.

Okay. Diolch. 

Lovely. Do colleagues from local government want to come in on these points, then I'll bring Laura in?

Yes. I'll quickly come in on Wildfire Wise. It was launched on 1 April this year, and we received assets from Mid Wales Fire and Rescue Service, which were leading on this, and we shared that with our partners in the Gwent warning and informing group in early April. And then, as we always do, to ensure consistent messaging, we encouraged all partners to share that in their channels and use those assets throughout the year. So, certainly from a Gwent LRF perspective, we were aware, we had communication from the fire service and we shared those assets with partners.

Lovely. Steffan.

I must admit, I wasn't aware. I'm part of the north Wales LRF, so that's something I will take away and discuss with colleagues within the LRF.

Okay. Diolch. Laura.

Thank you. What's absolutely key, as you've all alluded to, is that communication is key, and sharing best practice is what you also said. So, I'm really interested if you could possibly explain to the committee who makes up the Wales wildfire board. You chair it, but who else is on there? It seems very remiss that the 22 authorities and WLGA don't have representation on that when they are going to be key partners in delivery. Diolch.

We chair it. The fire and rescue services—. Beyond that, that's a gap in my knowledge, so I will find that out and let you know. I don't want to speculate and list various partners.

If you say it's worth while, I want to understand how. Thank you—that would be useful. Thanks, Chair.

I think Laura asked who was on it as well. I didn't really—.

Yes, it is a gap in my knowledge. I'm trying to think back to when I was last on it, who was there, and I just can't remember. It was in the Royal Welsh Show, the last meeting I had on it. I'll find out and let you know.

This just occurred to me: do you find the local resilience forums useful with gold command as well? I'm sure when we have wildfires, this will go up to gold command from a local government perspective. Do you find the co-ordination between everybody works well together, or are there gaps? Are there things that need to be worked out properly around who's accountable and who's dealing with certain issues? Because one thing that's been fed back to us as a committee is that sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, and sometimes things are falling through the gaps. And sometimes, the fire crews and people who are actually on the ground are firing in the dark, not quite knowing what to do, because the co-ordination of everything isn't quite married together. Is that something that you've experienced or would have a comment on? Because that's something that's fed back quite regularly to me, and I'm sure other Members as well, and we've received evidence on this matter. So, it'd be quite useful to get some feedback from you on that. I don't know who wants to start. I'll start with local government partners perhaps, because they deal with gold command.

I'll come in first if that's okay, Chair. I think it's a very good forum. They do work well. We work alongside the emergency services and other partners who form part of that group. I've sat on many tactical co-ordinating groups and gold command as well, and it is a very good forum. They're chaired usually by the police or the fire brigade, depending on what's going on, and it's certainly a good forum. We then translate that back to our operation team on the ground and vice versa. Information comes up from the ops teams on the ground to the TCGs and, if there is a need for reporting further, to the gold command. So, from my perspective and my involvement in certainly the LRF in north Wales, I think it's a very good forum, and we should be thankful that we have that forum in place, certainly in dealing with the events that we've seen over the summer and previous winters with the storms.

I totally agree with Steffan. The Gwent LRF is a fantastic forum and was superbly chaired by the fire service in a really difficult period, but done brilliantly well. The first multi-agency response structure was activated three days after the start of the fire in Blaenavon. The fire was reported on Sunday 19 July, and the TCG took place, chaired by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, on 21 July. Those TCGs and then strategic co-ordinating groups met frequently, almost on a daily basis, in that initial period of the fire. Then we settled into a very firm battle rhythm of meeting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays pretty much every week, which would be an SCG meeting at 10 a.m., a TCG meeting around 2 p.m. and a warning and informing group normally convening around 4 p.m. after the back of the TCG to prepare messaging to go out on all partner channels in the evening, which would be consistent, from a trusted source—because of course, everyone was commenting on the fires. They were so impactful; we had lots of commentators, and we had lots of questions being asked on social channels. But the co-ordination of that, I think, was fantastic throughout the summer and continued really all the way until the end of August. So, a significant effort and really very well co-ordinated by the fire service, with all partners in the room: NRW, Welsh Government, blue lights, local authorities. It was a proper co-ordinated response, which I think was exceptionally effective.

I'd second all of that. What I'd add is that fire incidents, these big incidents, are incredibly hard to deal with. So, I do think it's great, I think the system that we have set up in Wales is really good, but a system can never be so good that, when you're dealing with some of these fast-moving, chaotic fire situations, it will not feel really challenging. So, I think that's what you're hearing, just how challenging these situations are. But without the strength of the co-ordination that we have through local resilience forums, it would be a lot harder. And I agree with local authority colleagues; my experience is that it's really, really good.

I could come back with 10 questions, but I'll try not to because I want to move on to land management. I think we were going to start on the rewetting part of land management. I know John wanted to talk about rewetting. 

I think I'll question you a little bit on that. I'm not sure if you are aware of what's happening in Gower.

I'm not aware of that particular example, John, no.

Okay. The issue is, obviously, as we're saying, the need to have more and varied animals on higher levels—the horses, the cattle, and the sheep, all doing slightly different jobs—getting rid of the bracken naturally. To do that, I think the point has already been made that there's going to need to be some financial help, because it isn't going to be financially sustainable itself in its own way. One of the biggest blockages to that, so I've been told via the commoners, is the number of commoners actually using their common rights. People are moving into areas, and the commoners' rights go with houses, and people don't use the commoners' rights. So, you've got very few people actually doing it.

We could increase the number of animals on the commons, but the trouble is, when you have things like TB or bluetongue coming along, they have to be taken off. So, how do we actually make sure that it's a long-term, sustainable solution? Yes, you want the animals there, and yes, it's the right way to do it for all sorts of reasons—for the soil, for the climate, for everything—but how is that managed?

That's an incredibly difficult question—

It's the million-dollar question.

The suggestion was given that, possibly, the people that had taken on those commoners' rights, maybe some unknowingly, who have acres of land, would allow the land to be used, because the animals would need to be taken off the common if and when something happened. So, it's a really difficult thing, but it needs to be managed by organisations, rather than just the commoners.

I think the thing to explore, and not to do with the wildfire response, but actually arising from some work we're doing elsewhere with a partnership project in the uplands, and we're just in the early stages of looking at it, but one avenue—. And I'm not saying, committee, Chair, that this is the solution, but the kind of scope we should be looking at is how are those commoners organised. So, could the commoners get together and organise themselves into some kind of—? There's a thing called a community benefit society, and through that kind of model, they could then get the benefits, which would then incentivise the kind of grazing activity that we want to see. So, that's the kind of thing that I think we need: a twenty-first century institutional model for the management of the uplands, particularly where you have commoners' rights and you have the problem that you're talking about. 

I think in some areas that may be possible. In others, it's not. Because the people who've taken over those areas, certainly in Gower, a lot of them are holiday lets now, a lot of them have just gone beyond even local people being able to live in these places. It's a really difficult thing.

The parallel, maybe, to think about is that we're seeing a movement now in many of our communities where, say, the local pub has closed down, and then the pub is taken over by a community group, and the model there is quite often a community benefit society. I know it seems a bit off the wall to be going from wildfires, but I think there's a real model there about community participation and those kinds of models that are set up. Cwmpas might be an interesting organisation to talk to about how you might reorganise how commoners deploy their rights.

We're a bit tight on time. Would you be happy to stay for an extra five minutes after, if that's possible, just so that we can get more Members in, because it's an important area?

Yes.

I know we're talking about rewetting and I know Laura Anne Jones wants to come in. I'm just interested in how you work with people, say, like the Elan Valley Trust and others, and other local authority partners as well, in how we have responsible rewetting of the uplands to make sure water is actually retained and it doesn't dry out. Because what we do see sometimes is irresponsible rewetting—'We'll just rewet it and hope for the best'—and you spend an awful lot of public money and deliver nothing. But it's actually about making sure it's responsibly done rather than just trying to tick some boxes doing it. I'll come to Laura, and I think Andrew wants to come in then as well. No? I thought I'd seen you jumping forward, meaning you wanted to speak. Can I go back to you, Dom?

On the rewetting thing, the national peatland action programme is a really big thing for us, and it's something where we've overachieved on our targets. It only works when you do it in partnership with the groups, with the local landowners. We've seen some really interesting examples: the Tywi forest—the fire that was close to the forest but didn't get into the forest, I think that was last year; the Elan valley fire, where, on the ground, there's really strong evidence that the work we did to convert that degrading deep peat to healthy wet peatland habitat has resulted in the fire stopping and not going into those wetter areas. 

Chair, members of the committee, you're here to do an inquiry into the evidence. Be careful—it's correlation, it's not necessarily causation. But it is really strong evidence of yet another benefit of rewetting. The primary purpose is the carbon benefits and the biodiversity benefits. But healthy wet peatland habitat gives us biodiversity, beauty and protection, so clean water and wildfires—. The great thing is that all those things tend to combine in the same area. 

We are looking now, with the experience from this summer's fire season, at how do we further design those areas so that we've got better fuel load management, where we have contingency plans, like we build in firebreaks into the design of these things. But it has really redoubled our energy about the importance, as you say, Chair, of responsible rewetting. 

The other thing we were able to do was we were able to provide the fire service with some really useful information on where the deep peat was for some of these fires, which helped them manage their work. So, yes, healthy peatland is a really important part of this. 

Lovely, diolch. Laura. 

You touched on it just then, what I was going to ask, but I was just going to say that, obviously, rewetting—the responsibility of rewetting—has a role to play, a significant role to play. I was just wondering how significant you thought it was. You've said that it can't be done separately. It's hard to talk about these things, Chair, by the way, as these separate things, because they overlap. Because, alongside rewetting, of course, there needs to be the firebreaks, the fire ponds, because of the surface fuel that still remains regardless of the rewetting. We've talked about it a lot today, the bracken and everything like that. So that needs to all be done as a round, doesn't it, together. It can't be that just rewetting will sort it, or that will sort it; it all needs to be done. 

But I'm concerned about the time pressure of this, about getting all these things in place and done by next summer, so that we are as prepared as we possibly can be. How realistic do you think it is that we go out and we do that? My father is a farmer; I know that these things were done in the old days anyway as a matter of common sense. So all we're doing is reverting back into that commonsense approach into being able to prepare to prevent wildfires. But what do you think, realistically, of the timescales? How quickly can you get all this stuff done?

These are long term. Remember, we're already doing this across Wales. It's not just in Natural Resources Wales; lots of people are already working on this. By the way, into your mix of balance, I'd add some tree planting as well in there. But what you're saying about, 'You need a balance, you need all of these things' I think is really important. 

You're right: it is not possible to change land management within one winter. It is possible to change land management, and some time in the next 20 years, if we get it right, we'll find, 'Oh, actually, we are still getting wildfires, but they're not going that far, we're not getting as many of them', and that will be an example of success. The urgency—and I know we're talking about land management now—is more about the response and the understanding of how to deal with the fire when it does occur. Those are things we can do really rapidly, and all of us—the fire and rescue service, local authorities, and ourselves—are all doing the hot debriefs, the rapid learning from this fire season. We can put those into place. The land management solutions are longer term. But, remember, they're already happening. It will take decades to change the way that the uplands are managed.

Thank you. Any colleagues online want to comment on anything that's been raised by Members?

Only to say, I'm aware, from our flood officer, that we're doing things like coir matting and wool rolls to hold back water in the uplands, naturally retaining water in that area. I think we're allowed to do about 100 sq m at a time to do that work. Because our uplands are very high, there's limited opportunity for tree growth, but there are methods, described as small scrapes and ditches, that are being done to retain water in the uplands.

Lovely. Anything from you, Steffan?

No, nothing to add to what Neil covered there. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, diolch.

I'll move on now to cover the last area of questioning, which is Anna, and she'd like to talk about climate change and future adaptation.

Thank you. So, I think that the evidence that we've had presented is very clear that climate change is driving this increased risk of wildfire, and it's good to have that on the record. And I think that's really important so we recognise how do we manage this, how do we respond to it and the need to—. This is likely to get worse, the risk's increasing, so we urgently need to adapt. So, I suppose my question is, first off: how are you, as organisations, putting in place adaptation around this? Who do you think might fund that? And who delivers? Who's going to be doing the work, trained up, maybe empowered, to deliver some of the adaptation work?

Who'd like to start? Shall we start with local authority colleagues, and perhaps give Dom a break? Shall we start with Neil?

Sorry, could I have that question again, please?

What are you doing to get in place, I suppose, adapting now to—? We know this risk is increasing, so what are local authorities doing to really adapt for it now? What are the challenges on funding that? And also, on delivering that, who do you see as key partners in delivery and upskilling? Actually, somebody's going to be paid to do this work. Who do you think is going to benefit, almost, from the investment that we need to make in it?

Okay. Well, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent are the areas I cover. Blaenau Gwent has suffered some flood incidents. One of the things we've done, certainly—it's more around prevention, but—is to set up a taskforce, which has been set up in Cwm, a community taskforce, and they're our first line of defence. They're our eyes and ears on the ground. They report to us when drains become blocked. We, obviously. inspect frequently, but they can become blocked very quickly. So, there's a big emphasis on prevention, and that taskforce are there now to deal with every kind of emergency, and they stood up during the recent wildfires and acted—set up the community hub, and acted as a first point of contact for the community. They know their community really well. They know where the risks are. They know where the people who need support are. That means that the emergency services can direct resources to the people who need it most critically. So, that's helpful.

In Torfaen, we haven't suffered much flooding, but, clearly, flood defences in other parts of Wales have become a significant issue, but we know it requires complex engineering and comes with significant cost—back to the question that I think has been raised several times today about resources. As for wider climate change, as a local authority, we now have common warm hubs and cold hubs—warm hubs to help people in particularly cold winters, and, for us, those hubs then frequently act as cold hubs when it's particularly warm, somewhere that people can go and cool that we know will be several degrees cooler than, perhaps, people's homes.

But we're putting a big emphasis on community resilience, and we've now created, outside of the Cwm group and the model that has proved successful there, giving that group training—. We're now rolling that out to areas of Torfaen in Ponthir and, this week, we held a Blaenavon preparedness group. It's about helping the community plan for emergencies. But, very much, we need the community to help us to do more, to be that first line of defence. So, I think that's something that's going to help future incidents.

Okay. Steffan.

Similar thoughts to Neil, Chair, but, just to add, I mentioned earlier on that we're working on—. The actual document is called 'Storm-proofing Wales', and, within that document, there are 11 recommendations. One is that we need, as all Welsh authorities, to move to an all-hazard and all-resilience approach to dealing with climate change, be that the wildfires that we've seen or the severe weather impacts of flooding et cetera. So, I think we need to grasp this document and get it moved forward with colleagues within local authorities, Welsh Government, the WLGA, and have this as a kind of standard in moving forward to tackle the climate change issues that we see coming our way.

Lovely. Thank you. Dom.

Really a very similar theme, so I won't repeat it, but just to remember that this is not new. So, on wildfires, for example, for several years now, every February, we get together with our local resilience forum partners and say, 'What's our preparedness?', 'Are we ready?' One area that I do think we need to be looking at—. So, for us, in terms of the maturity of our site management for wildfires, it's good in the south, I think. In the mid and the north, we need to accelerate what we've been doing in south Wales further into mid and north. So, we have examples, for example, of fire breaks that we could be maintaining better, whereas, in some of the south Wales valleys forests, we tend to have got them well designed and are maintaining them.

One area that I'm sure is on your agenda somewhere is the provision of aerial support for the fire and rescue services. So, our limited provision, which is for the land in our care—our reflection is, with our colleagues in fire and rescue services, that we need a deeper, more secure, probably UK-wide aerial support provision as one of the ways of responding to the increased risk of wildfires.

Lovely. Happy, Anna?

Yes, diolch. Thank you.

You were talking about aerial, and it's something I know we did want to come on to, so I'll bring Laura in for our last question, and then I'll bring the session to a close.

Sorry, yes, really quickly, just a direct question: do you think you've got enough people in NRW to fulfil the things that you want to fulfil in order to protect our land? All the things that you've outlined—do you think that your capability is there in terms of the people that you have? Because I know they're few and far between—that's not your fault, it's a matter of funding, perhaps.

I think we do, but I think what everyone needs to understand is that we have to make trade-offs in this. So, we don't have enough people to do everything that everybody wants us to do all of the time, but we all face that. But I look at, say, our incident response for the wildfires that we've just been through, and we managed it. It was really hard. It will have an impact; some things we'll do less of. But as long as we're able to manage that and explain that and explain the trade-offs, then we're not asking for a lot more resource. More resource is always lovely. It's always tempting to ask for more. But I think we've got what we need. We're worried if we do have to start cutting our budgets. That will have an impact. But I think people do need to understand there are trade-offs. So, some of the impacts on our forests that we've seen, it will have an impact on our sustainable timber harvest, because we'll have some choices to make. We either put the money and the work into restocking and repairing that or carrying on with the harvest. There will have to be a balance there, for example. So, it does have an impact.

Thank you. I'm going to use the Chair's prerogative again, because you mentioned about aerial support. It's the last, last question, I promise. On aerial support, one thing I'm sure all Members heard was—we heard it earlier from the Fire Brigades Union—asking for aerial support, and it wasn't coming. A lot of the people I spoke to thought that was Natural Resources Wales's job, to provide the aerial support. So, I'm just interested, from your perspective: is that assumption correct or are people incorrect in assuming NRW are the ones to provide aerial support? And if you are, how do Welsh Government help you with that? And if you're not, is that a space where Welsh Government should be stepping into to provide you with the resources to be able to do that?

So, on aerial support, it's quite nice that people expect us to be able to do so much, but it is—

The joys of being the regulator.

—it is an incorrect assumption. So, the aerial support provision we have is not us as a fighter of fires, it's us as a big landowner. So, we're the biggest land manager in Wales, so—. 'Landowner' is wrong—land managers. It's the Welsh Government woodland estate mainly, and some of it's our land, the national nature reserves. So, we're the biggest land manager in Wales and, for a long time, we've felt that we needed the ability so that when the fire and rescue services, when the incident commander at the fire and rescue services, said, 'I need aerial support to fight this fire,' when it's on our land, the land that we care for, we can provide that. So, the framework was designed only for that, for us as a land manager, and it's clear that Wales as a whole needs something bigger than that.

Now, during the major incident, when fire and rescue services colleagues and we were all really struggling, we did expand what that framework was before, we made it more flexible, we made it quicker, and we'll carry on with it being quicker, but we pushed it beyond what it was designed for, and, as it happened, there was a conjunction of circumstances where the three suppliers on our framework were not available. One was fighting a fire in England, the other one had to have some downtime—it's an incredibly risky, dangerous thing, flying these helicopters in these environments—and the third one, unfortunately, hadn't managed to get themselves re-licensed. And that meant there were no helicopters available for a time.

But, as I stressed, our set-up is us as a land manager, not as a fighter of fires. We think, together with the fire and rescue service chiefs—. We all met when the incident was emerging, and our feeling is that there needs to be, probably, a UK-wide aerial support mechanism—not run by us; we're not the right people to run it, we don't have the capacity and capability to do it. It probably does need Welsh Government input. And I do think it's urgent, because if we're going to have something in place for the next fire season, we need to have started a month ago, really, if there's a procurement solution on that.

I could come back again, but I think we'll write to you, to NRW, with some further questions on this area.

Can I just, on behalf of the committee, thank our witnesses today, Dominic, Steffan and Neil, for their contributions? Just to let you know that a draft transcript will be sent to you to check for accuracy. But, once again, thank you very much for coming in today. We're very grateful. And the evidence you provided will help inform us going forward about the evidence we put forward to Government and recommendations of how they can actually improve the situation for the people across Wales. So, diolch yn fawr iawn. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Really quickly—I missed doing it earlier, Members—apologies for absence have been received from Vikki Howells. And also it is Paul Rock's birthday. So, pen-blwydd hapus from all of us; I'm sure it's lovely for you to be 25 again. So, thank you very much and happy birthday to you.

So, item 4 is papers to note. So, they have been circulated to Members in advance of the meeting and are in your packs. Is everybody content to agree the papers to note? Lovely. I don't see any dissent.

Item 5, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Members are content. Thank you very much, everyone, for watching, and we'll now proceed in private.