The Great Fuel Moisture Survey: developing fundamental wildfire science and sustainable community owned agency in traditionally non-fire prone societies

New fire vulnerable communities are emerging in traditionally non-fire prone regions of the world. But these communities are often largely unaware of the developing threat and do not hold the core wildfire knowledge to galvanise collective community-based action to mitigate the risk. Furthermore, we urgently require knowledge of fuel moisture dynamics and flammability of fuels in such regions to provide accurate assessments of fire danger at the national scale. Here we characterise the moisture content and flammability of heather through engaged environmental science, demonstrating the potential of the approach to develop a public consciousness and knowledge of wildfire within communities. Fuel sampling kits were sent to 150 samplers who collected ~1000 vegetation samples across the UK (from Land’s End to John O’Groats) over a period of two days during a single period of high fire danger. The validity of the volunteer approach for collecting high quality fuel moisture data was also assessed from the analysis of a separate ~1500 samples collected by 17 samplers in a single test plot. The approach provides a simple nationally available entry point for residents traditionally unaware of both the wildfire risk and the management of their community for wildfire mitigation. Empowering samplers offers potential future opportunity to create meaningful local datasets, to build communities, and in doing so give a strong voice to residents in regional and national policy discussions.