How Does The UK Fight Wildfires?

Summary

Newscast (BBC News)

Episode: How Does The UK Fight Wildfires?
Date: July 30, 2026
Host: Adam Fleming
Guests:

• Dr. Theodore Keeping – Climate and Wildfire Scientist, Imperial College London
• Dr. Anna Murgatroyd – Lecturer in Hydrology, Newcastle University
• Parham Gobadi – Senior Reporter, BBC Persian
• Katrina Perry – BBC News, Washington DC

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Episode Overview

This episode of Newscast investigates two resurging news stories: the outbreak of significant wildfires in Suffolk, England, and the renewed Iran-US crisis in the Gulf. The first segment explores the mounting risks of wildfires in the UK amidst drought conditions and the strategies for combating them, while the second highlights the evolving Middle Eastern conflict, its geopolitical dimensions, and impacts on global oil, economies, and public perception.

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Part 1: Wildfires & Drought in the UK

1. The Suffolk Wildfire: Scale and Context

Timestamps: [01:45] – [07:09]

• Adam Fleming introduces a major incident: a wildfire in Suffolk covering an area the size of 100 football pitches.
• Dr. Theodore Keeping contextualizes the scale, emphasizing it’s “a manageable size” compared to vast continental wildfires, but “takes round-the-clock effort to keep that controlled and keep it from coming into urban areas.” ([04:12])
• The fire is on heathland, which burns at a lower intensity than forests, making it easier to suppress. “You can drive around the perimeter, do what we call cut line, to create a fire break.” – Dr. Keeping ([04:35])
• Proximity to Sizewell Nuclear Power Stations is observed, but Dr. Keeping reassures, “We are very, very, very well protected against [a nuclear incident]. That’s not something we probably need to worry about. But ... disruption to our critical infrastructure and that is energy supply … is of particular importance in a heatwave as energy costs go up.” ([05:23]–[05:56])

Notable Quote

“You should be more worried about the pylons than the nuclear reactor.”
– Dr. Theodore Keeping ([06:00])

2. Weather Drivers, Drought, and Impact

Timestamps: [06:07] – [11:48]

• The UK and continental Europe are both experiencing fires due to a “relatively moist winter followed by a rapid onset of really dry conditions...” – Dr. Keeping ([06:14])
• Dr. Anna Murgatroyd defines drought types: meteorological, soil moisture, groundwater, and water resources drought.
• The Environment Agency defines drought using aggregated data: “particularly ... their existing monitoring networks that look at river flows and soil moisture and rainfall.” ([08:14])
• The “driest month in the last 200 years” is referenced.

“Since April and May, we’ve had persistently low rainfall … for most parts of the Southwest, the Southeast and East Anglia.” – Dr. Murgatroyd ([09:20])

• Effects: Water is abstracted under license; during drought, these can be limited to protect the environment and rivers.
• Historical risk: 1976 included water shut-offs and distribution via standpipes.

“We haven’t got there yet, but it is a measure that’s built into water company water resource management plans.” – Dr. Murgatroyd ([11:09])

3. Fighting Wildfires in the UK: Methods and Challenges

Timestamps: [11:48] – [16:11]

• Water supply for firefighting is threatened by drought and management strategies: “In 2022 … there was not sufficient water pressure to fight those fires for several hours ... water companies decrease the water pressure in heatwaves to save water.” – Dr. Keeping ([12:00])
• UK wildfires often start as agricultural or grass fires, commonly during harvest with “lots of machinery involved.” ([14:51])
• Fire retardants are described: “Basically a chemical compound that suppresses the fire ... [and] slows down the fire, enables the firefighters to get into the fire and cut out flaming vegetation.” – Dr. Keeping ([15:37])

Memorable Moment

• Adam Fleming pokes fun at his own “obvious questions,” keeping a light tone and referring to the panel as “an academic conference.” ([09:44])

4. Longer-term Risks and Climate Change

Timestamps: [16:11] – [19:35]

• Drought has “knock on” socioeconomic effects, including food prices and shortages in Britain:

“We will start to see ... food prices increasing and fewer food products from Britain on our shelves.” – Dr. Murgatroyd ([16:38])

• Dr. Keeping unveils findings from a new climate study: extreme fire conditions in France are now a “1 in 20 year event,” and in Spain a “1 in 6 year event” – double the likelihood due to human-caused climate change.

"In both these cases we found with very high confidence that the likelihood … has increased due to human-caused climate change by over double.” – Dr. Keeping ([17:16])

• The pace of climate change outstrips adaptation:

“The climate is still changing and the climate is changing very fast … we will be in a new climate [within] six years.” – Dr. Keeping ([18:43])

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Part 2: Iran-US Crisis & Middle Eastern Geopolitics

1. The Sharpening Crisis: Escalation and Strategic Geography

Timestamps: [20:06] – [25:16]

• Adam Fleming introduces the resurgent Iran-US conflict, including Iranian missile attacks on US troops in Jordan and US retaliations.
• Parham Gobadi describes the widening front, including “a tanker that was carrying American LNG was targeted by a drone” off Egypt, expanding the threat beyond traditional choke points like the Strait of Hormuz to the Suez Canal ([21:43])
• This raises the specter of far wider disruptions in oil supply:

“Not only Strait of Bab el Mandab is closed, not only the Strait of Hormuz is closed, but also Suez Canal on the other side is becoming dangerous as well.” – Parham Gobadi ([21:43])

• Connection with the Russia-Ukraine war: Iranian drones used in Ukraine are now in focus; Parham describes cross-blame between parties and targeting of shipping, showing the complex global entanglement.

2. US-Saudi Relations and Political Calculations

Timestamps: [25:16] – [28:11]

• Katrina Perry explains the “extraordinary” US-Saudi relationship, its evolution, and the confusion in overall strategy.

“There’s a general state of confusion as to how this whole situation can move forward ... anything they’re trying really isn’t making too much of a difference or getting to that off ramp …” ([25:29])

• Reference to US politics: President Trump’s recent nuclear deal announcement with Saudi Arabia, tied to normalization with Israel, further complicates the picture ([25:29])

3. Prospects for Negotiation and Iranian Strategy

Timestamps: [27:07] – [30:22]

• Pakistan is attempting “to bring both parties to the table” for negotiation.
• Parham highlights that “Iranians were the ones who started the conflict this time around ... [usually] retaliatory strikes. It was the first time that Iranians conducted a preemptive strike ... to inflict economic pain by closing the Strait of Hormuz.” ([27:24]–[28:11])

4. Economic Repercussions and Public Opinion

Timestamps: [28:11] – [31:56]

• Katrina Perry describes how American voters’ attitudes are shaped by economic pressures, notably fuel and food prices as a result of the conflict:

“People will go to the polls and they will look at how much money they have ... added price hikes on things that are related to supply chain or transportation, fertilizer ... that's putting the prices of food and everything up” ([29:02])

• Parham Gobadi discusses changing Iranian public opinion, initially hostile to the regime but now focused on brutal economic reality:

“They are suffering tremendously because of the economic hardships ... people are bearing the brunt of this war, both economically and also ... they feel that they're living in a limbo.” ([30:39])

5. The “Forever War” Question

Timestamps: [31:56] – [33:52]

• Katrina reflects on the prospect of this becoming a “forever war”:

“There is no magic solution to this. There is no act of diplomatic engagement going on that seems to be making any progress.” ([32:10])

• The conflict is burning military resources and creating uncertainty, with little hope of quick resolution.

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Notable Quotes & Highlights

• “It’s not the same as going to the dentist for a checkup every two years, is it?” – Adam Fleming, on adapting to fire risk ([19:18])
• “It's like going to the dentist and then them telling you what happens if you don't do your teeth for two years.” – Dr. Theodore Keeping ([19:22])
• “Now they want an end to this conflict and they want to live in a normal country with a normal economy.” – Parham Gobadi ([31:56])

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Key Timestamps

| Topic/Segment | Time | |-------------------------------------------------|-----------| | Suffolk wildfire scale/context | 01:45–05:23| | Drought definition/impacts | 07:09–11:09| | Water supply, firefighting, reservoirs | 11:48–14:28| | Fire suppression methods | 14:51–16:11| | Long-term risk/Climate study | 16:11–19:35| | Iran crisis intro/escalation | 20:06–25:16| | US-Saudi relations/politics | 25:16–28:11| | Iranian strategy/public opinion | 27:07–31:56| | “Forever war” reflection | 31:56–33:52|

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Tone & Style

• The conversation is factual yet conversational, with Adam Fleming keeping the pace lively and the mood collegial despite the gravity of the topics.
• Occasional humor and self-deprecation from Adam, especially around "obvious questions" and metaphors (“dentist” analogy).
• Experts’ responses are clear, jargon-free, and accessible, but always precise.

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If You Only Have Five Minutes

• The UK is facing significant wildfire risk, exacerbated by record drought; suppression is possible due to scale, but dependent on water supply.
• The effects of drought reach beyond the environment, threatening water supply, agriculture, and economics.
• Climate change has already doubled the likelihood of extreme fire conditions in Europe.
• In the Middle East, the Iran-US crisis is broadening—a regional conflict with major economic and political repercussions. Supply chains, oil flows, and inflation are all under threat; public patience in Iran is running thin.
• The outlook is grim: both the environmental and geopolitical crises are worsening, with no easy off-ramps in sight.

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End of Episode

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Transcript

[Adam Fleming]

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[Adam Fleming]

Hello. Today's an example where two stories that we've covered before have come roaring back to life. The wildfires that were afflicting Southern Europe at the start of the week now appear to be afflicting a part of England in the east of England. And the Iran crisis is back with a vengeance. So we will discuss both those developing stories on this episode of Newscast.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.

[Adam Fleming]

Humanity's next great voyage begins. You know, I like my buses. I'll come on to them.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

That he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.

[Adam Fleming]

Ooh la la.

[Parham Gobadi]

Thinking about it like a panto helped.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Do we play music now or what do we do? And what will you do?

[Katrina Perry]

Stare at a wall?

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast studio. And first of all, we're going to talk about a huge fire that's been declared a major incident in Suffolk in the east of England. And this comes at the same time as the Environment Agency has said that half of England is suffering from a drought, which is a little bit more of a complicated thing to describe than you might think. So we're going to spend some time looking at both the heat and the lack of water. So please welcome back to Newscast. He's the climate and wildfire scientist at Imperial College London, Dr. Theodore Keeping. Hello.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Hello. Thank you.

[Adam Fleming]

Long time no see. There's been a lot of wildfires this week.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

There's been a quiet week for wildfires.

[Adam Fleming]

Yes. And also joining us for the first time, Dr. Anna Murgatroyd, who is a lecturer in hydrology at Newcastle University. Hello, Dr. Anna.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Hello. Thank you for having me.

[Adam Fleming]

I have to say I've now presented Newscast for so long that I find actually saying the name Newcastle, I have to concentrate to not say newscastle.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Newscastle, Newscastle versus Newscast.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, exactly. Anyway, maybe we should do a program from Newcastle anyway. Right. We will come on to drought in a second. Your specialism, Anna. But first of all, Theodore, as we learned, your specialism is wildfires, where it's one of your specialisms. The situation that we were talking about on Monday in France and Spain, so around Bordeaux and around Madrid, does seem to have got maybe a bit less bad since we last spoke.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, for sure. So those fires have died down. It's quite hard to know exactly what's going on and you can never rule out a flare up because they're still burning a bit. But I've been monitoring the, the satellites and looking for smoke plumes and it's looking a lot calmer, which is great. That said, it's been a huge set of wildfires. I think the one in, in France was pretty close to 40,000 hectares, which is, you know, massive. Multiple. Multiple times the size of an average city. So.

[Katrina Perry]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

And of course, a fire that's a bit more under control is not the same as a fire put out or the landscape recovering from a huge fire.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Absolutely. And as we talked about, a fire is in itself an ignition source for another fire. And we're entering a heat wave and we're seeing a large number of fires burning in other parts of France and Spain as well. So the fire season is very much

[Adam Fleming]

underway and then we've got a homegrown thing developing in Suffolk. There's a huge wildfire there. There's been a major incident declared by the local authorities. I think the latest stat is the area that's on fire is the size of 100 football pitches.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

[Adam Fleming]

So just provide a bit of context for that sort of scale of a fire.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

So that, that fire. Let's compare it to two things. Let's compare it to a bonfire and you think about the. The heat that is kicked off, you know, a Guy Fawkes night bonfire. This is a different beast. It takes round the clock effort to keep that controlled and keep that from coming into urban areas. But the good thing is it is a suppressible fire. It is a manageable size. That's.

[Adam Fleming]

Why is that?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Because it's a human scale. I mean, I Mean, obviously that's, that's big, but you can, you can drive around the perimeter, you can do what we call cut line, which is basically when you clear back the vegetation to create a fire break. And the good thing is that this fire is on heathland, which, whilst it's drier, it can get drier more rapidly and it spreads faster. The fire burns at a lower intensity, which means it can't leap over, you know, a road or something. In the same way that a forest fire.

[Adam Fleming]

Because it's not trees.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Exactly right.

[Adam Fleming]

There's just less vegetation to. Brian.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, exactly right.

[Adam Fleming]

The, the sort of, the, the twist on this though is that there is a very large and important nuclear power station there. Size Well B. And they're also building size. Well C. Yeah. Nearby. It seems like the, the risk to that is quite low at the moment. But is that something that people should be worried about?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yes, this is a risk. So we saw a very, very different context. We saw around Chernobyl during the Ukraine war, wildfires that were impinging upon there. And, and that can be a. If you disrupt nuclear activity, you know, worst case scenario, there can be an incident. We're very, very, very well protected against that. That's not something we probably need to worry about. But what we do need to worry about is disruption to our critical infrastructure and that is energy supply, which we know is of particular importance in a heat wave as energy costs go up.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, so we should be as worried about the pylons near size. Well, as we are about, we should

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

be more worried about the pylons than the nuclear reactor. Although obviously the worst case scenario doesn't involve the pylons.

[Adam Fleming]

And is there any, any kind of comparison between what was happening in France and Spain on Monday and what's happening in Suffolk today on Thursday?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

So they are driven by very, very similar weather. The scale is, is completely different. But that's not to say that the UK is unlikely to see really, really devastating wildfires even this summer. So what happened in the Spanish and French fires is we saw a relatively dry, sorry, relatively moist winter followed by a rapid onset of really dry cond. The summer, particularly at that kind of surface. And we've seen the same thing in the UK with a very, you know, quite severe drought developing across England and Wales. And when you compound that with a heat wave, which we're obviously now experiencing again, you get very rapid drying of your finer fuels and also a dry landscape already. And you combine those things together and

[Adam Fleming]

you get very high, so hot and dry, basically, which is Actually not that complicated.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Very simple.

[Adam Fleming]

But once, once you lay out like that, which bring us on to the drought, then. Anna, do a definition for us before we talk about the scale of the drought in England and what it means. What actually is a drought and when we declare one.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Well, you've almost asked an impossible question because we have lots of different types of drought. Probably the most common and most widely understood is a meteorological drought, which is where we have below average rainfall, usually over a series of months, which leads to deficits then cascading through our hydrological system and it can cascade into our agriculture and our water systems as well. But on top of that, we can have soil moisture droughts, which we're also experiencing at the moment due to incredibly high temperatures, groundwater droughts, which are even harder to monitor because we can't see our groundwater. And then we can also get water resources droughts. So when we are water resources and our water supply systems, our storages are running below average for that certain time of year.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, let's try and make it a bit easier for you then. If it's the environment Agency today saying that half of England, including Suffolk island in drought, what definition is the agency using?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

So the agency will bring together different streams of evidence, but they particularly are using their existing monitoring networks that look at river flows and soil moisture and rainfall. So they'll be gathering all that data and they'll be able to reference the current state of the system against previous years, our historic long term averages to establish whether or not the situation we're experiencing at the moment and what's likely to unfold over the next couple of weeks to months is what we can class as a drought compared to previous standards.

[Adam Fleming]

So it's a kind of generalized measure for how little water there is in the kind of the system in an area, as opposed to how little rain there has been.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Yes, yes, exactly.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

So can I ask a question, Anna? Are we in what's called a meteorological drought when we just have, we haven't had very much rain? Because the thing I've been paying attention to is the very high temperatures. And that's meant that we are seeing loads and loads of evaporation from the land surface and, and that's a large proportion of what's driving the droughts. But have we also seen really low rainfall and do you know what's driven that?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Yes. So since, since I'd say April and May, we've had persistently low rainfall. We've obviously had localized areas of higher rainfall. But for most parts of the Southwest The Southeast and East Anglia, we've seen persistently low rainfall. I think we're on track for maybe the driest month in the last 200 years is my understanding.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, wow. Also, can I just say, this is like being at an academic conference. Do you want to swap papers, do some PowerPoints with each other? And so Anna, in terms of the Environment Agency making this judgment today, I mean, what's the knock on effect of that?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

There are already actions in place, but it means that people are more likely to be encouraged to save water. There'll be actions taken within agricultural circles to perhaps harvest crops earlier than is usual. It also means that things like abstraction licenses. So if water is taken from our rivers by water companies or other water users, they typically have to follow abstraction licenses. So they can take a certain amount out a day, a month or a year.

[Adam Fleming]

So you can limit those.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So these, these will be limited. The idea being that what is crucial and perhaps what the Environment Agency, the heart of it is they want to protect our environment. And that means making sure that our rivers still have water running through them even during really dry periods and that our riverine environments are protected.

[Adam Fleming]

And Anna, we sometimes think about droughts as, oh well, what's the knock on effect for our drinking water? Will our taps run dry? And then you think, well, no, because the times that our taps run dry is because there's been a problem with the water supply. And it's more of like an engineering problem rather than a water problem. But is there ever a risk in Britain that a town or a village could just not have any drinking water?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

That's always a risk and it's something that we have seen historically. So a great reference period is the 1976 drought. We're in the 50th year anniversary that and we're actually seeing conditions that are evolving and unfolding to be in some cases worse than that benchmark 1976 drought. But during that time we had regions of the country where water was shut off. People couldn't access water in their homes and they had to collect water via standpoints and pipes in the street. We haven't got there yet, but it is a measure that's built into water company water resource management plans. If our water storage and the situation

[Adam Fleming]

does rapidly deteriorate and Theodore, does the supply of water have, have an effect on the ability to fight a wildfire?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, it did. So we saw this.

[Adam Fleming]

I mean, I'm sorry, that's such an obvious question. No, just explain how it does.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

It is. It Is. And we've, we've seen this happen in, in the UK before. So in 2022, the Wellington fires, there was not sufficient water pressure to fight those fires for several hours. And that actually wasn't because of. Of drought conditions. It was. Well, it's, it's unclear exactly why it happened, but a large part of it is the fact that water companies decrease the water pressure in heat waves to save water. And so, you know, some. Sometimes those water saving measures, you know, which are generally there for the public

[Adam Fleming]

good, have a consequence in another context. Yeah. And Anna, just on the issue of reservoirs, I mean, I always remember as a child being driven around on long drives on family summer holidays and you'd go past the reservoir and it would look really, really empty. And that can look very dramatic and feel a bit conserv. Burning. What's actually going on with reservoirs and when they look empty, are they empty? Does it get to a point where, like, it's too empty or actually, is that just a part of the life of a reservoir?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Yeah, so a great question. And reservoirs are not built to remain full throughout the year. Right. We build them so that when it's rain, when water is plentiful, we can store the water to be used during drier periods. So it's normal to see those reservoirs being drawn down in the summer months. What is different about this year is. And it comes back to that compound event problem. We've had persistently low rainfall, so our reservoir stocks are already not as full as they maybe should be. But we've also had extreme heat. We're going into our fourth heat wave of the year, and our water demand as a consequence is significantly higher than we would expect it to be for this time of year. And so people are using more water and persistently using more water for multiple days, multiple weeks. And that means that our demand is higher, our reservoirs are being drawn down lower and a faster rate than we would expect.

[Adam Fleming]

And do we know the psychology of people using more water when it's hotter? Because, of course there's the obvious, which is you drink more and maybe you shower more. But is there something else going on there as well?

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

I think it does just come down to that, that if you're incredibly hot, you've just cycled across London, you get home, you're.

[Adam Fleming]

Which Theodore just has done to get to the studio.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Put those on the video feed.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Having a shower is the easiest and probably the quickest way to cool yourself down. And it's not just that people are doing. You might have A shower. As soon as you wake up, you'll have a shower when you get in from work and you'll have a shower before you go to bed. And so we're just using in some cases, double or even more water than we might do normally.

[Adam Fleming]

And just as we're recording at half past three on Thursday afternoon, the BBC news channel has just flashed up a headline that Wales, all of Wales is now officially in drought. So that is expanding kind of minute by minute as well. Theodore, when we're fighting fires, I mean, is water kind of all we've got really? Although I know you've talked about you can create fire bricks by chopping down some vegetation kind of in advance of the fire. Getting there.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

For the UK scale, water is super important because often what we're dealing with at this time of year are relatively, particularly at the outbreak stage, a relatively small grass fire or even an agricultural fire. You know, we've been talking about drought. Another big part of that story is the harvest, which is hopefully ongoing. And in these very hot and dry conditions, the likelihood of fires. There's lots of machinery involved in harvest and, and those will often start agricultural fires. It's quite common. And the response there, in addition to, you know, plowing. Plowing. A line ahead of that fire, as a farmer, is to call the fire brigade and they would suppress it with water. And, and that's one of the key things that, that we need to suppress

[Adam Fleming]

because I saw in France and Spain this week they were using a sort of retardant.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

What's that?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, so that is basically a chemical compound that suppresses the fire. Okay. So you damp it down and it's in flat. It's not, it's not flamma. What almost said inflammable, which famously means flammable. Yes. And it's not flammable and therefore it slows down the fire. And what that enables the firefighters to do is to get into the fire and cut out some of that flaming vegetation. Often they'll literally beat it out while it's on fire.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Because it's at that lower intensity where you can actually put it out, whereas before, you know, the flame lengths might be 2 meters long and no one's getting that close.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah. And Anna, last question for you. My big fear, listening to what you've been saying in the last few minutes is that, okay, it's drought announced in various places at the moment, and that's today, but the effects of the drought and the consequences and the knock ons will be with Us next month in the autumn, maybe in winter, maybe next spring, maybe this time next year. We will be feeling this drought in various ways for a really long time.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Yeah, absolutely. And often when you think about drought, you just think about low precipitation or really hot temperatures. But actually it affects our socioeconomic systems massively. So one thing that I imagine we will start to see is food prices increasing and we're probably likely to see fewer food supplies or food products from Britain on our shelves. We might even start to see shortages depending on what happens over the next couple of weeks to months.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay, that's good to know. And Theodore, last question to you. When you were here on Monday, you were talking about this study that you were working on at that point that was getting published today.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

It is getting published today.

[Adam Fleming]

What have you said?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

It's not out, so. Okay, but it might be by the time people listen to this, I think. Yeah. Google World Weather Attribution. So basically what we've done is we've looked at the fire in near Bordeaux and the fire in Spain and what we found is that for the seven days of maximum fire weather. So that's the hot, dry and windy conditions that drive these really intense fire events. The event in France was in today's climate about a 1 in 20 year event. And in Spain it was about a 1 in 6 year event. So relatively common, something we'd expect to see pretty frequently. And in both of these cases we found with very high confidence that the, the likelihood of these conditions occurring has increased due to human caused climate change by over double in both. In both cases.

[Adam Fleming]

What's the way of thinking about that last part?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

So for example, in, in the French case it was at least a one in event, probably more before human caused climate change. So when the Global temperature was 1.4 degrees cooler. And in the Victorian era. Yeah, exactly. In the Victorian era and in the Spanish case the, the effect was, was even stronger to the extent that we actually struggled to constrain how, how much that likelihood had increased.

[Adam Fleming]

And just in terms of the how often it happens in X number of years, does that mean Spanish people in those areas should be gearing up to having to fight these kind of fires every six years? Ish. Whereas in France it's oh, have the to occasionally find this kind of fire?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

No, because the climate is still changing and the climate is changing very fast. So actually in six years time we will be in a completely, I mean it won't, won't be another 1.4 degrees like we've experienced since the Victorian era. But we will be in a new climate and in six years from then we will again. And we know that these sorts of hot, dry extremes are very responsive to climate change. That's also the case in the uk. You know, we shouldn't be adapting to the fires that we've seen in the Kilmgaly or in Suffolk. We should think about what the UK climate adaptation report said, which was that a quarter of days in a 2 degree climate, we would expect to see very high fire risk.

[Adam Fleming]

It's just making me think it's not the same as going to the dentist for a checkup every two years, is it?

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Yeah, well, it's like going, it's like going to the dentist and then them telling you, you know, what happens if you don't do your teeth for two years. True.

[Adam Fleming]

Although I'm sure people could quibble with the metaphor and maybe it doesn't quite work. That'd be tried. Theodora, thank you very much. Thanks for coming back.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Cheers.

[Adam Fleming]

And Anna, thank you very much to you and the University of Newcastle.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Thank you for having me.

[Dr. Theodore Keeping]

Summer smells like citrus in the sun. Turn your home into a daily getaway with Pura's new summer collection. Find your flow and fragrance and explore the [e-mail]

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now.

[Adam Fleming]

The crisis in the Gulf seems to be getting worse. After a period of calm that was interspersed with some military activity. What happened is that Iran used missiles to try and attack US troops stationed in Jordan and then the US retaliated in quite a big way. So that's the situation as it is now. And I'm joined by two people who can help us understand a bit more about what's going on. Here in the studio is the senior reporter for the BBC Persian Survey, Parham Gobadi. Hi, Parham.

[Parham Gobadi]

Hi.

[Adam Fleming]

And also joining us on the line from Washington D.C. is Katrina Perry. Hi, Katrina.

[Katrina Perry]

Hello.

[Adam Fleming]

Now, Parham, can you help me with the timeline here? So we had the initial conflict, then we had the so called ceasefire, then there was a little volley a few weeks ago that lasted for nearly a fortnight, then there was a period of calm and now we're into now again

[Parham Gobadi]

trading fire between the two sides, Iran and the United States. But the difference this time is that that different conflicts around the globe are kind of converging and it is spilling over to different areas. Like today, last night, actually a tanker that was carrying American LNG was targeted by a drone. No group has claimed responsibility for that. But the fact that it was the first time that Egypt, off the coast of Egypt A ship was being targeted. That's really important, especially as the Strait of Babel Mandab near the Houthis in Yemen has been blocked. Is really important because it is showing that not only Strait of Bab el Mandab is closed, not only the Strait of Hormuz is closed, but also Suez Canal on the other side is becoming dangerous as well.

[Adam Fleming]

Even though it's a really long way away.

[Parham Gobadi]

It is a really long way.

[Adam Fleming]

It's a choke point that Iran actually has no like control over Iran.

[Parham Gobadi]

It's a long way from Iran. Exactly. But the most important is that it's really important for the Saudis because Saudis had difficulty transiting their oil through the Bubble Manda because of the Houthis attacks. They had to transfer it through Suez Canal. Now if these attacks continue, Suez Canal is also becoming dangerous for them to cross.

[Adam Fleming]

And then we're in a world where we're not Talking about the 20% of the world's oil supplies that go through the Strait of Hormuz, we're then talking about much higher double figures of the world's oil supply.

[Parham Gobadi]

Because that's how Saudis were actually circumventing the straight and foremost. They were sending, they've got this Western, Eastern, east west pipeline. So they were sending their oil through the western part of Saudi Arabia and transiting it through Babel Mandab to their Asian customers, especially China and India. Now that has been blocked. They were trying to go through the Suez Canal and going all the way around Africa. But if that is becoming dangerous as well, then it's really difficult to difficult thing for Saudis and Katrina.

[Adam Fleming]

We'll talk about the US Saudi relationship in a second because that's so interesting just in itself. But the initial kind of spark for this bit, not to use a terrible wildfire imagery, but was an attempted Iranian missile attack on US troops in Jordan.

[Katrina Perry]

Yeah, this, as Parham was saying there, we're seeing this opening up on a number of other fronts here. And as the Egypt development is so significant, so is the Saudi Arabia. For the first time, they're saying they're now engaged here with the US carrying out this sort of retaliatory strike on Iranian backed rebels in Iraq. So suddenly have another front opening up again. And this led then to even more intense strikes last night because the US said it intercepted a further five missiles being targeted at its bases. So. So we're seeing an intense level of warfare considering we were in a ceasefire just a couple of days ago.

[Adam Fleming]

And actually if you want proof of the point about escalation across the region that you were talking about, Parham. We've just added four new countries to the list just in that conversation. Egypt, Saudi, Jordan and Iraq.

[Parham Gobadi]

Exactly. Because Jordan was not being targeted that much during the 40 day war. It's just the recent thing. And like on a daily basis we hear that five ballistic missiles have been at least fired at Jordan. But apart from that, another country that is really interesting is Ukraine. I was watching Iranian state tv, former Iranian ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan was putting the blame of the Saudi attacks, attacks against Saudis from Iraqi oil on Ukrainians. He was saying that Ukrainians are involved in this because Ukrainians, you know, during the 40 day war they were trying to help Gulf countries fight off the Iranian drones because they have the experience. They were fighting off Iranian drones in their war with Russia because Russia was using shahed drones that are Iranian built drones. So you see different countries are getting involved. And a few days ago Ukrainians targeted an Iranian ship. They were saying that it was carrying military cargo and they targeted that Iranians saying it was a commercial ship and one Iranian sailor was killed. Regardless, the fact that Russia and Ukraine are getting drawn into this Middle Eastern conflict is quite interesting because like I said, there are different countries around the globe that are merging together and that's a real, really dangerous thing to happen.

[Adam Fleming]

And Katrina, I mentioned the US Saudi relationship. It seems that you've got on one hand the US and the Saudis doing a joint attack in Iraq that you mentioned. But also you have the Saudis publicly saying we need to de escalate everything here.

[Katrina Perry]

Yeah, I think it just speaks to the general state of confusion as to how this whole situation can move forward. We're seeing that coming from the administration of frustration that anything they're trying really isn't making too much of a difference or getting to that off ramp that we talk about so often. Which as experts would say is the reason why American presidents haven't done this in the past because of the exact risk of escalation that we're seeing now. One Republican said to me the other day, this Saudi US relationship is so extraordinary to him because it's not that long ago that the US and Saudi were sworn enemies as well. This person was referencing back 9, 11 and where some of the individuals involved in those attacks, attacks had actually originated from. Now they're acting together in these strikes on Iraq. We saw just a couple of weeks ago as well, didn't we? President Trump announcing this nuclear deal, commercial nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Then less than A day later, tacking on this sort of contingency that Saudi had to sign up to the Abraham Accords, normalize its relationship with Israel, and now they're carrying out these strikes, Saudi aligning itself with the US like this. So, you know, to Parham's point, again, it just shows how everything is so interlinked in this conflict. President Trump has eased sanctions on Russian oil because of all the difficulties we were talking about a moment ago. That's having an impact on the Russian effort in Ukraine as well. So it does feel like, you know, you're covering these stories and suddenly they're all starting to align into an apex.

[Adam Fleming]

And Parham, that ceasefire that we were talking about earlier on was designed to create some breathing space for negotiations between the US and the Iranians for a longer term solution to all of this. Do we have any idea what's happening there?

[Parham Gobadi]

So Pakistanis are saying that they're trying to bring both parties to the table.

[Adam Fleming]

Just to get them to the table,

[Parham Gobadi]

to get them to the table. But the point is that it's really important that Iranians were the ones who started the conflict this time around, because it was quiet for some five nights, if I'm not mistaken. So, so before that, Iranian doctrine was like, our strikes are retaliatory strikes, so whenever the United States or Israel attack, we retaliate. It was the first time that Iranians conducted a preemptive strike. And that shows that the reason is that because Iranians know that they cannot win militarily against the United States. So what they do is that they try to inflict economic pain onto the United States of America by closing the Strait of Hormuz. And, and they know that as soon as the conflict ends, the oil prices drop. So they don't want that to happen. They want to keep the pressure on

[Adam Fleming]

Donald Trump and Katrina. How's the US Domestic politics looking, like? Because I know every time we speak, I'm like, oh, the midterms are just around the corner. But previously the corner was quite a big, long corner. It's getting closer and shorter every day.

[Katrina Perry]

We can nearly see around the corner at this stage, can't we? But it's that pressure that Parham you're talking about there. I mean, we had new figures out today showing that the pace at which the US Economy is growing is slowing down and shrinking. You know, we've seen inflation. It, it did steady in the last month, but it had dramatically increased over the lifetime of this war. Since the end of February, prices are still really high. Gas has stabilized, or petrol has stabilized a little bit, but it's still much, much higher than it was at the start of the year. And it's kind of that situation now where you're getting used to seeing the oil and the gas at this higher level. It's not the same kind of sticker shock that we had in, say, March when suddenly the prices were rising and they fluctuate day in, day out based on what is happening there, what the president is saying every time he says we're going to hit them much harder or we're going to ease back, we're going to let diplomacy have a chance. The markets are fluctuating ever so slightly. But the point is the same as we've been saying for months now, people will go to the polls and they will look at how much money they have in their pockets, how much it's costing them to fill up their car or their van or whatever. There's added price hikes as well on things that are related to supply chain or transportation, fertilizer. Of course, the other big thing that's slowed down because of the blockages in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere. So, so that's putting the prices of food and everything up, which already were up 25, 30% in the last few years. So, you know, speaking to Republicans about this, those who are running for office and their advisors, they've all come to the conclusion now that they will not be able to outrun the drag that this is having on voters sort of love for them or preference for them. So they are genuinely worried at this point about what it's going to do for those election results.

[Adam Fleming]

And as we discussed previously, a sticker shock is so called because it's to do with the stickers that the prices are on items in the shop. Parham, what about Iranian public opinion? And I know that's a. Well, it's a difficult thing to measure public opinion in any country because countries are diverse. But also we don't have much access to the Iranian people.

[Parham Gobadi]

Exactly. So the mood has changed a lot. So because at the beginning when the war broke out, it was right after a month or two after the slaughter of Iranian protesters, like thousands of Iranian protesters were killed. So people were really angry with the regime and they were happy that many people were happy that the Iranian supreme leader, who they thought was in charge of those killings was killed. However, when they see that their economy is in dire strait right now, they are suffering tremendously because of the economic hardships. You know, Iranian people are used to inflation but the inflation that we are seeing right now is unprecedented. Apart from that, they see the buildings getting destroyed, their infrastructures is getting destroyed, their bridges are getting destroyed, the things that they used to be. It's really normal, for example, to buy some plastic bags. Now it's become really expensive because petrochemical companies were targeted during the war. So people are bearing the brunt of this war, both economically and also they feel, feel that they're living in a limbo. They have no idea for how long this will continue. So that's why the mood has changed a lot. They want an end to many people I talk to, they want an end to this conflict and they want to live in a normal country with a normal economy.

[Adam Fleming]

And just to end on a slightly philosophical note, Katrina, are we now in one of those forever wars? And I know that definitions of what that phrase and how it's deployed might vary, but I mean, it seems like it's going on for a long time with no prospect of stopping. Stopping.

[Katrina Perry]

Yeah. I mean, it depends how you define a forever war. Right. Anytime the President's asked about this, he points to, you know, Vietnam, 18, 19 years there and other engagements, Iraq, Afghanistan, which lasted much, much longer. And he'll say, well, this is only five or six months. But you have to go back to how he said this would only be a multi day incursion at the beginning, which then became four to six weeks with then became a few months. Now, whenever you speak to any of the advisers around the President, there is an acknowledgment that this is going to go into next year. There is no magic solution to this. There is no act of diplomatic engagement going on that seems to be making any progress. Maybe it's all going on deeply, secretly and none of us are aware of it. But that would seem highly unlikely in this age where, you know, everything is leaking all over the place and you have so many different interested parties. And just the pressure and the, I suppose, power that as we were talking about, about at the start that Iran has with the Strait of Hormuz and how they're managing to do all that by using very cheap and quickly assembled drone technology, which the US is combating with very expensive ballistic missiles and so on, which is putting huge pressure on them in terms of munitions stockpiles. And there's some private reporting here in town, which we haven't from the BBC ourselves verified, but it comes to the New York Times and others that the view in the American military is that, you know, there is limited efficacy. Now from what's happening with this exchange of fire that. What is that achieving? It's just running down munitions stockpiles.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah. 20 minutes ago, I wondered, next summer will I be presenting Newscast and we'll be talking about forest fires and drought in the UK and we'll be like, here we are again. I'm now just also thinking we might be talking about this conflict in maybe very, very similar terms. Parham, thank you very much.

[Parham Gobadi]

Thanks for having me.

[Adam Fleming]

And Katrina, good to catch up with you too.

[Katrina Perry]

You too.

[Adam Fleming]

And finally, our colleagues at BBC Local Radio have been doing this big project called Farm Watch, which kind of speaks to some of the subjects we've been discussing elsewhere on this podcast today. And part of that project involves a thing called have you seen this on the BBC News website Moosecast. That's what it sounds like. This is following in real time with the webcam. A herd of 500 cows being moved from their field to the milking parlor, which long term listeners of Newscast will know sometimes comes up on Newscast when we ask where and when you're listening to the podcast. So we're gonna go one better and have Full Fat Moosecast right here on this podcast. If you listen to Newscast and live or work or happen to be passing through a rural area, why not record a sound that you hear while you're there? Use voice memo on your phone or whatever technology you have to hand and send it to us. And on Friday's Newscast, we will do Full Fat Moosecast where we play all the sounds and create a beautiful little soundscape. Email us newscastbc.co.uk or you can WhatsApp us, which is a really easy way to send audio and sound at 033-01-2390. And then my colleagues will put them together into a beautiful, beautiful little rural montage which you will hear on the next episode of Newscast. Thanks for listening to this one.

[Katrina Perry]

Bye bye.

[Adam Fleming]

Newscast.

[Dr. Anna Murgatroyd]

Newscast from the BBC, you've come to

[Adam Fleming]

the end of Newscast. Some people, and you know who I mean, might say you ooze stamina. Can I encourage you to subscribe on BBC Sounds? And you can get in touch with us anytime. Email [e-mail], you can WhatsApp us on 0301-239-480.