What’s the real cause of the fires on our mountains?

AFTER a month of flames ravaging our mountains and the all invasive smell of smoke carried on warm winds, the summer of 2026 will be remembered by history as the summer of wildfires.

Here in South Wales, we’ve had them before of course, but never on this scale or intensity.

We can only hope we don’t suffer from them again.

Yet for that to happen, we need some clear ideas as to what exactly is responsible for all these wildfires in the first place.

The first fire of many broke out on the evening of Sunday July 19 on Mynydd Garnclochdy near Blaenavon.

It began as all fires do with a little smoke and then quickly turned into something else.

Epic would be the wrong word.

Apocalyptic would perhaps be a better fit.

In the hours and days to come, in Abergavenny and elsewhere, we could see smoke coming off the mountains.

Yet this wasn’t dragon’s breath or Merlin’s mist. It was elemental, unrelenting and unforgiving.

When they could smell the smoke in Cardiff, we knew we were in trouble!

This was no ordinary wildfire.

It soon burned its way through an area the equivalent to 300 football pitches and worse was to come.

No sooner had one inferno been bested, than another began elsewhere, or else old flames reignited to fan further destruction.

Blaenavon, Llangynidr, Rhandirmyn, Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Dowlais, Pontarddulais, Gorseinon, Drran Park, Ferndale, and Wattsville, Treherbert all caught flame.

As one returned to ashes, another flickered into life.

Weary and worn firefighters travelled from site to site and worked around the clock on hostile terrain in a frantic bid to put out the infernos which were seemingly becoming infinite.

Since then, the army has been called in, helicopters patrol the skies, people have been evacuated from their homes, and the battle continues.

Even a once-in-a-lifetime eclipse couldn’t stop the smoke and still the flames.

The moon put out the sun, the birds seized their song, and the light left the skies, but still the fires continued to smoulder as a hazy blanket of smoke seemed to settle on everything and firefighters, sillhoueted by flames, worked into the night.

A phone alert last Friday from the government told us nothing we didn’t already know.

And still the fires continue to burn.

But what caused them?

It’s been a hot summer, and the vegetation is exceptionally dry, but we’ve had hot summers before.

Yet did we have such an abundance of vapes, disposable barbecues, and broken beer bottles littered on our mountains before?

Not to mention those people clueless, selfish, and dim-witted enough to discard them there?

Is it blazing stupidity to blame climate change?

Should we brace ourselves for an epidemic of wildfires every summer?

According to figures from the Global Wildfire Information System, the world has seen less wildfires this year than any other year since 2012.

That means little when you’re on the frontline or living in the direct path of a wildfire, but it does suggest that fire management precautions rather than climate change could be the real issue.

The Welsh Assembly has remained considerably quiet and inactive on dealing with the latest spate of wildfires, but in the UK overall, the centuries honoured tradition of controlled burning on heather moorland in the winter has become increasingly frowned upon by various agencies.

It’s suggested that ‘cool burning’ harms the habitat, but at what cost?

Without proper land management and regular cool burns to reduce the risk of the far more damaging wildfires, are we setting ourselves up to burn eternally?

Of course, when the first flames flickered into life, social media was soon alight with the blame game.

Yet if it is arson, then we are truly living in a world gone wrong.

What possesses a person or person to creep unseen and furtively like a legion of rats across our mountains with the sole aim to burn, destroy, and fill the air with their own special brand of poison?

What foul intent governs the hand that wants to drive the wildlife from their home, and scar our unique landscape until it is as ugly and barren as the ambition that lit the flame?

What has gone wrong with such a soul?

Is it poor parenting? A lack of self-worth? A limited grasp of community? A woeful disconnect with nature and the laws of cause and effect, or just a desperate need to prove themselves in the wastelands of social media.

Have fires now become content, and has Tick Tock challenged a handful of its users to completely discard reality for the corrupting enticements of the screen and the dopamine hit of going viral?

John Keats once wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

The doomed romantic poet didn’t factor in social media and the attention economy, where engagement trumps everything!

And then there were the more outlandish theories surrounding the wildfires.

Rumours abound about deep state operatives starting the fires deliberately for some diabolical and fiendish ends that we have neither the time nor inclination to explore here.

However, when the smoke clears, and the flames are finally extinguished, it perhaps matters less what caused the infernos than the fact there are those, be they firefighters, farmers, soldiers, or just kindly souls, who were willing to man the mountains day and night, shoulder to shoulder, in a heroic bid to prevent things from becoming a whole lot worse.