UK wildfire alert sent after 19 homes destroyed

People across England and Wales began receiving a rare emergency phone alert on Friday warning them not to light anything that could spark a fire, as Britain faced 37 blazes and a wildfire in Stourbridge destroyed 19 homes.

West Midlands Fire Service said 19 houses were completely destroyed and 18 others damaged in Stourbridge, near Birmingham. Residents were evacuated and some people were treated for smoke inhalation after the fire spread on Thursday, the UK's hottest day of the year so far.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited Stourbridge and said Britain must face up to the changing climate and move faster toward clean energy. He described Britain as “a tinderbox” and warned against lighting fires outdoors as the government introduced a ban on selling disposable barbecue equipment.

Firefighters were still extinguishing hotspots in open grassland, along a railway and in gardens on Friday. The fire service said one firefighter was hospitalised and five others suffered minor injuries at Stourbridge. Farther north in Staffordshire, six firefighters were taken to hospital with smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion while tackling similar blazes.

The ambulance service in the West Midlands region, including Stourbridge and Staffordshire, said it treated 68 people on Thursday for symptoms including smoke inhalation, with 25 hospitalised.

Emergency services said some blazes around Stourbridge were set deliberately in grasslands before spreading. West Midlands Fire Service chief fire officer Simon Tuhill said “tinder dry” conditions helped the flames spread quickly and called the incident one of the most significant the service had attended.

The West Midlands and nearly three-quarters of England are in drought after weeks of high temperatures and little rain, increasing fire risk. Burnham said he would convene a summit with fire services, acknowledged that the government had not supplied enough resources for wildfires and said it planned to commission firefighting planes.

The National Fire Chiefs Council warned that wildfire risk was growing faster than response capacity, citing climate change, prolonged extreme heat and changing land use.