11/08/2026
BEHIND EVERY FIRE ENGINE IS A HUMAN BODY. 🚒❤️🔥
Right now, firefighters are continuing to battle the devastating wildfire in the New Forest.
More than 100 hectares of this precious landscape have been affected, with more than 120 firefighters involved in the response — working through heat, smoke, difficult terrain, changing winds and prolonged physical exertion.
And among those responding are crews from Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, supporting their colleagues from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service.
For me, that hits particularly close to home.
I spent four and a half years working with and supporting Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service personnel. They became my little fire-service family, and watching them head into an incident like this brings back very strongly what sits behind the fire engines we see driving past us.
Behind every fire engine is a human body.
A firefighter carrying PPE and equipment. Working in extreme heat. Breathing in an extraordinarily challenging environment. Managing dehydration, fatigue and repeated physical exertion, while still having to think clearly, make decisions, communicate and keep their colleagues and the public safe.
Earlier this year, I spoke publicly about the proposed cuts facing Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.
At that time, proposals included the potential closure of eight on-call fire stations, with the Fire Brigades Union warning of the loss of 96 firefighter posts and eight fire engines.
My concern then remains my concern now:
We cannot judge the value of fire-service capacity simply by how frequently an appliance is called out.
Resilience is the capacity we have before the emergency happens.
Because when more than 100 hectares are burning, you cannot suddenly manufacture trained firefighters, experienced crews, specialist equipment or fire engines.
And we need to look at the environment in which we're asking our firefighters to work.
The UK is now entering its fifth heatwave of this summer. Large parts of England are officially in drought. Vegetation and heathland are exceptionally dry, and wildfires are placing increasing demands on our Fire & Rescue Services.
So perhaps we also need to have a serious national conversation about aerial firefighting capability.
Other wildfire-prone countries integrate specialist aircraft and helicopters with firefighters on the ground. As the UK's wildfire risk changes, should we now be investigating a properly resourced national aerial firefighting capability too?
Not instead of firefighters.
To support them.
To give incident commanders another tool when enormous areas of heathland, woodland and countryside are burning — and to reduce, wherever possible, the extraordinary burden being carried by the people fighting these incidents from the ground.
This isn't about criticising the management of this fire.
It's about asking whether the resources available to UK Fire & Rescue Services are keeping pace with the environment we're now asking them to protect.
And today, most importantly, it's about the people who are out there doing the job.
To every firefighter, control-room operator, incident commander, support team and agency involved in the New Forest response — thank you.
And to my Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue family supporting their Hampshire & Isle of Wight colleagues:
I'm thinking of you. Look after yourselves and each other. Stay safe out there. ❤️🚒
We see the fire engines.
Let's remember the humans inside them.
