A record number of wildfires have broken out across England and Wales, as Britain is set to be hit by the fifth heatwave this summer.
Temperatures could reach 36C or higher this week with possible impacts to railway lines and power networks as the Met Office considers issuing rare amber or red extreme heat warnings.
Fire crews attended 395 wildfires in the three weeks to July 31, equivalent to around 12 a day across the month
Departments across Whitehall have raised concern about the weather, with one source telling The Times the whole country is “like one giant tinderbox”.
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Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said: “We’ll probably see highs reaching the mid-30s quite widely on Wednesday, and indeed on Thursday too for England and Wales.
“On Wednesday, probably the Midlands, maybe a little bit further south, the M4 corridor, west of London, up towards the Midlands, is where we might have a small chance of reaching 36C in one or two spots.
“But Thursday at this stage looks the most likely hottest day of the week.
“So 36C is a fairly reasonable probability locally on Thursday and there’s a small chance it could get even higher than that.”
Half of England and all of Wales have been plunged into drought and more regions could be declared when officials meet at the National Drought Group today.
Mr Morgan said: “If it wasn’t for this incredible summer that we’re currently seeing, then we’d be talking about these temperatures as being really, very unusual.
“But of course, we’ve had such an exceptional summer, people have become a bit used to it. There is a potential for impacts, so impacts to infrastructure, things like railway lines and power networks, impacts to vulnerable people as well.”
A Whitehall source said: “The summers of 2022 and 2025 were both bad but not a patch on this year. There is increased monitoring of national resilience data especially after the Suffolk fire, which required resources from across the country.”
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Firefighters tackling a heathland fire in the New Forest have warned they will be at the scene for the “foreseeable future”.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service received more than 160 emergency calls reporting a vehicle on fire on the eastbound A31 at about 5.24pm on Sunday.
Twenty-six fire engines, four water carriers, six off-road vehicles and several command vehicles were initially at the site near Ringwood on Sunday evening, but this morning this had been scaled down to 10 fire engines and 10 off-road vehicles.
The fire service said the blaze spread from the vehicle to the central reservation before progressing into nearby heathland in a south-easterly direction towards Backley Bottom.
Yellow heat health alerts issued by the UK Health Security Agency are in place for the East Midlands, West Midlands, South East, South West, East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber and London.
The alerts continue until 9pm on Tuesday but may well be extended as the hot weather continues.
Meanwhile, the Met Office is considering issuing rare extreme heat warnings ahead of the scorching temperatures forecast later in the week.
Mr Morgan said: “We sometimes issue extreme heat warnings, amber and red warnings, which we did back in June, so that’s under consideration at the moment”.
So far, the extreme weather of summer 2026 has included two record-breaking heatwaves in May and June that led to more than 2,800 excess deaths.
Two more heatwaves in July, the driest July in England and Wales since records began in 1836, have fuelled drought and wildfires.
The European Union’s earth observation programme Copernicus said average temperatures across western Europe reached 21.61C (70.92F) for June-July, breaking the record set in 2022.
Globally, this year is just behind 2024 and 2025 as the third hottest year on record.
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