Firefighters are tackling wildfires for a third day in the Scottish Highlands, putting pressure on fire and rescue services.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) warned that the blazes are limiting the ability of “stretched” firefighters to respond to other emergencies, so they are “becoming a danger to human life”.
Scotland’s fire and rescue service was first alerted to a fire near the village of Carrbridge on Saturday morning.
A witness who tried to extinguish the fire told the BBC it started in a ring of stones where a campfire had been lit with camping chairs left behind.
Firefighters and the SGA were still battling multiple wildfires in the area on Monday evening, when local residents were directed to close windows and doors to prevent smoke from entering.
But the SGA said a “round-the-clock effort” helped prevent a “nightmare scenario” where two blazes merge into one larger fire.
“This is becoming a danger to human life because firefighters are becoming so stretched dealing with wildfires that they don’t have the resources to attend other fires,” an SGA spokesperson said.
“We need to have the Scottish government and their advisers out now to see what is happening, while these fires are ongoing.”
The fire service added that firefighters were working “tirelessly” to tackle the wildfires from Carrbridge in the Highlands to Dallas village in Moray.
It said: “A significant number of resources and special resources have been mobilised throughout the area.”
The blazes come as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency issued flood alerts for Findhorn, Nairn, Moray, Speyside, Dundee, Angus, Tayside, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City.
“Minor flooding impacts and disruption to travel is possible if the heaviest rain falls in vulnerable areas,” the agency said.
Other parts of the UK and continental Europe are experiencing severe heatwaves, with climbing temperatures exacerbated by a heat dome.
Scottish politicians sounded the alarm over the extreme weather incidents.
First minister John Swinney said on X that the wildfires were “extremely serious”, while MSP for Inverness and Nairn Fergus Ewing added they were “said by many locals to be the worst in our history”.
Mr Ewing said he had already called on the Scottish government to convene its emergency response committee, the Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGORR).
Elsewhere, Moray Scottish Greens councillor Dræyk van der Hørn photographed the wildfires from a summit in the Cairngorms.
“Wildfires in Scotland were once a rarity. Not any more,” he said.
“Hotter, drier springs and summers – driven by the accelerating climate crisis – are turning our landscapes into tinderboxes.
“Fires are now more frequent, more intense and more destructive. This is not a distant warning.
“Climate change is here, and Moray and Scotland are on the frontline.”
