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As a former wildland fire fighter, I can assure you that temperature (and wind and relative humidity) have a HUGE effect on fire behavior. Furthermore temperature and relative humidity (not so much wind) have a huge impact on ignition. My training emphasized this quite heavily, but I thought the effect was exaggerated until I experienced it first hand. In the Western US, construction, mining, forestry, etc. industries are well aware of the fire risk from routine work (construction equipment, off road vehicle traffic, chain saw work, etc.). In "red flag" conditions, there are fire watch policies. For example in forestry work, my crew would have to cease chain saw work late in the morning and stand a fire watch for 30 minutes before leaving the work site. So as I watch the news about these fires, my first thought is ignitions: routine activities (parking a vehicle on grass, driving construction equipment, discarding a cigarette) that would be unlikely to cause a fire in normal (backward looking) UK weather conditions. My next thought is that once a fire has started, it is likely to burn hot and fast. Hotter and faster than I suspect fire fighters in London are accustomed to. As an aside, I have been trying to figure out a good source for weather data. I see plenty of sources for temperature, but I am curious about the wind speeds and relative humidity. From the photos I am seeing, it looks like wind speeds are over 10 mph. |