London Fire Brigade says they dealt with 340 fires in first week of August

The rise of 340 fires in the first week of August, means that the service handled eight times more than the same week in 2021. 

It comes due to the high temperatures across the capital and the lack of rain, seeing grass become brown and straw-like and saw the Met Office place an amber warning for extreme heat on the region. 

Assistant Commissioner Jonathan Smith said: “This summer has seen an unprecedented long, dry spell with high temperatures, so the grass in London is tinderbox dry and the smallest of sparks can start a blaze which could cause devastation.

“Despite our continued warning over the last few weeks, we know there are still people who are barbecuing in parks, dropping cigarettes out of car windows and leaving rubbish lying around.

Greenwich Park (PA)

“We really need to prevent a repeat of the situation we saw on July 19, when homes, shops, garages, outbuildings and vehicles were destroyed across London in a number of significant fires."

Last month LFB had one of the most difficult days in recent history, after the record-breaking heatwave with temperatures above 40C caused dozen of fires leaving the brigade to declare a major incident. 

Mr Smith, had already said “we’re not out of the woods as far as this heatwave is concerned”, as he urged people to avoid using disposable barbecues and take care when extinguishing cigarettes.

He told Sky News: “The situation as we face it at the moment is that the ground is very, very dry – unprecedented in terms of the conditions that we face.

“We haven’t had significant rainfall now for some time, and what we really want to do is to prevent these fires from happening before they begin.”

He added that he was "urging the public to think about and modify their behaviour over the course of the next four days in particular to take that pressure off the emergency services."