Smoke billowing above rocky hilltops. Acres of vegetation left blackened and charred. And the sound of a helicopter hovering overhead, ready to water bomb the flames.
Those scenes are increasingly familiar to parts of southern Europe, but many visitors to Britain’s largest national park, the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands, would be more prepared for rain than wildfires, even in summer.
Yet on Wednesday firefighters were still battling a two-week conflagration that has ripped through moorland and forest, obliterating some of Scotland’s most cherished natural scenery, threatening wildlife and forcing some local residents and tourists to evacuate.
“Southern Spain and southern France are starting to get the weather that North Africa had, and the U.K. is starting to get the weather that Spain or France had 20 years ago,” said Grant Moir, chief executive of the Cairngorms National Park, in a telephone interview. “That is the whole thing about climate change.”
The blaze began on July 15 near Aviemore, a Highland town known for its winter snow sports. At its height, more than 500 firefighters responded. Two helicopters dropped up to 40,000 liters of water per hour to douse the flames, and the police last week declared the wildfires a “major incident,” with smoke seen in Aberdeen, more than 60 miles to the east.
“The whole thing has been horrifying from start to finish,” said Bill Lobban, the civic head of the Highland Council, the local municipality. “When you see a national park going up in flames over a widespread area, with huge levels of destruction, it’s heartbreaking.”
The Cairngorms typically attract visitors content with a temperate climate. Measurable rainfall occurs on over 250 days a year in the Scottish Highlands, and tourists are advised to expect highs in the summer of around 63 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17 degrees Celsius, by the country’s tourism agency.
But as British summers become hotter and drier, wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe. The worst blaze in British history took place last year, on Dava Moor in the Scottish Highlands. Described as the country’s first megafire, it incinerated almost as much land as would normally burn across the whole of Britain in a year. It also released greenhouse gases trapped under peat soils for around a millennium, according to researchers.
The 25 square kilometers of land, or 9.6 square miles, estimated to have burned in the Cairngorms is less than at Dava Moor, but the Cairngorms is a sensitive ecological area that includes an ancient Caledonian pine forest.
“The Cairngorms has 25 percent of the U.K.’s rare and endangered species, so we are talking about the most important place for nature conservation in the U.K.,” Mr. Moir said.
He added that the cause of the fire had not yet been identified and the full scale of destruction was yet to be assessed. But Mr. Moir said there would likely be impacts on Caledonian pine woods, peatland and on resident species including adders, the rare insect called the pine hoverfly and bird species like capercaillie.
While much vegetation would recover, “if you have lost a 250- or 300-year-old Caledonian pine, you are not going to get that back overnight,” he added.
And, while no dwellings were destroyed, the fire came close to some and forced several businesses to close at the peak of the tourist season. Mr. Moir urged visitors not to avoid the whole park, just the affected area.
In many fires, wind is the primary force that spreads and fans a blaze. But peat soil, like that in the Cairngorms, can serve as fuel itself, too.
“If a fire is quite ferocious and quite hot, it gets into the soil and can travel in that peat soil,” said James Reynolds, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Scotland, a charity that owns much of the afflicted land. “You might not see flames but the fire will still be smoldering in hot spots.”
He warned that the risk would persist for some time, with the potential for fire to reignite wind, heat and sparks in the soil.
Political tensions have been stirred by the crisis. Having requested assistance from the British military, the Scottish government in Edinburgh rejected what it was offered. The head of Scotland’s government, First Minister John Swinney, said in a statement on Sunday that he had been told that the British defense ministry “does not possess aerial firefighting assets stationed within the U.K.,” and that the other resources available were not needed.
Within Scotland some criticized the response as too slow, despite praise for the work of emergency responders. The two helicopters deployed were operated by private companies, and Mr. Moir said that responders “could have done with air support being available right at the start,” adding, “That is something that absolutely has to be dealt with.”
In the short term, much may now depend on the weather forecast.
“This is the middle of the tourist season and you generally don’t hope for rain,” Mr. Lobban said. “But here we are all praying for it.”
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