As the UK entered its fifth heatwave of the summer in August, fire chiefs warned of mounting pressure on fire and rescue services as firefighters continued to respond to exceptionally high levels of wildfire activity. According to data from the Fire and Rescue Service National Resilience programme, fire and rescue services in England and Wales responded to 966 wildfires between 1 January and 10 August 2026, exceeding the numbers recorded over the same period in both 2022 (748) and 2025 (848) – previously two of the busiest years for wildfire activity on record. Firefighters responded to 185 wildfires in the first 10 days of August alone. July was their busiest month ever for wildfires in England and Wales, with firefighters responding to 458 incidents. At the same time, England is currently experiencing widespread drought, with 10 Environment Agency areas officially in drought as of early September.

Separate satellite-based data provides a different measure of the scale of the risk. According to VIIRS satellite data captured via the SUOMI satellite and reported by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, there were 4,659 wildfire detections across the UK in 2025, compared with 3,305 in 2018 and 951 in 2024.

London was the country’s biggest urban wildfire hotspot in 2025, according to the data, which showed that spring, rather than summer, saw the highest number of wildfire detections, with 2,635 compared with 1,606 during the summer.

Wildfires pose a particular concern for insurers when they occur closer to towns and cities, where homes, businesses and infrastructure are more exposed. This summer, the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters urged loss adjusters to submit more large fire claims to the relaunched RISCAuthority Large Loss Database, highlighting the importance of claims data in identifying emerging risks and informing fire safety policy.

Paul Redington, deputy chair of CILA’s Property Special Interest Group, said that recent wildfire activity is a reminder of how quickly fire risk can escalate, and that the insurance industry’s ability to understand and respond to it depends in part on the quality and completeness of the data it has to work with. Loss adjusters are often among the first professionals to assess the consequences of a major fire, he added, meaning the detail captured through the claims process can help inform the guidance and regulation designed to protect lives and property in the future.

The UK is not alone in experiencing prolonged severe heat. According to data from Swiss Re, Europe is seeing 64% more hot days (when the daily maximum temperature reaches 30°C or more) than in the 1950s. It says rising temperatures have intensified risks across health, agriculture, water, energy and infrastructure, while also increasing the likelihood and severity of other natural hazards.

Recent wildfire activity reminds us that heat risk is not confined to traditionally hot regions. Switzerland, for instance, is warming at more than twice the global average rate. The Alpine country now experiences around 10 to 15 days each year with temperatures of 30°C or higher, compared with around five days in 1990. Cities are particularly exposed, according to the data, with urban temperatures reaching up to 6°C higher than surrounding rural areas.

In terms of insurance costs so far this year, Swiss Re calculates that global insured natural catastrophe losses reached an estimated £31.1bn in the first half of 2026, 16% below the 10-year average.

This lower first-half total does not indicate that catastrophe risk has receded, however, with Swiss Re cautioning that insured wildfire losses in Europe have increased by an estimated 8% to 11% a year in real terms since 1970 – confirming wildfire’s place as the fastest-growing weather peril globally.

For insurance and risk professionals, the message is therefore less about the headline loss total than about how quickly the risk environment is changing – and whether the industry has the data needed to understand where exposure is accumulating and how losses are evolving as a result.

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