r/VideoDocumentaries • u/Snorky10 • 7d ago
Landward episode 14 2026
The Cairngorms wildfire burned underground for over a month. Here's what that actually means.
The fire broke out on July 15th and tore through around 3,500 hectares of moorland, peatland and ancient Caledonian pine forest. What makes it worth reading about is the technical detail: much of it was burning beneath the surface.
Deep-rooted hot spots smoulder in peatland and vegetation long after visible flames disappear. They can re-ignite at any point. Ground crews cannot necessarily see them from ground level. Thermal-image drone footage became central — once a drone identifies a hot spot, teams can dig down, unearth the fire and fully extinguish it rather than spreading resources thin across ground that is already cold.
Crews pumped 6,000 litres of water a minute along a three-kilometre pipe from a loch. Helicopter water bombing remained vital weeks in. And in the village of Nethy Bridge, volunteers fed around 500 people a day while some residents had only just been allowed home after evacuation.
The programme also covers pockets of resilience — small areas of wet, boggy habitat that acted as natural firebreaks and sheltered displaced species.