Fire management byelaw - owner guidance

Cairngorms Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw: Guid­ance for land and prop­erty own­ers, man­agers and occupiers

Con­tents

Background…………………………………………………………………………………………………2 Purpose…………………………………………………………………………………………………….2 The role of land & prop­erty own­ers, ten­ants and occupiers………………………………2 The Park Authority’s Role…………………………………………………………………………….3 Exemp­tions — by type of property…………………………………………………………………4 Domest­ic properties………………………………………………………………………………..4 Hol­i­day accommodation…………………………………………………………………………..5 Licenced cara­van & camp­ing sites…………………………………………………………….5 Moun­tain­eer­ing Club huts or similar……………………………………………………………6 Bothies……………………………………………………………………………………………………6 Organ­ised events and organ­ised groups………………………………………………………7 Provid­ing evid­ence of the grant­ing of an exemption……………………………………….9 Stoves…………………………………………………………………………………………………….10 Gas barbecues……………………………………………………………………………………….10 Explain­ing why some fires or bar­be­cues are allowed…………………………………..11 Fires & bar­be­cues out­side the peri­od the byelaw applies……………………………..11 Report­ing of fires…………………………………………………………………………………….12 Fire report­ing matrix………………………………………………………………………………..13 Fur­ther advice and information………………………………………………………………….13 Appendix 1: Cairngorms Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw……………………………………..14

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Back­ground

Fol­low­ing an extens­ive pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity received approv­al from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to intro­duce a fire man­age­ment byelaw and this will come into force on 1 April 2026. There­after the byelaw will oper­ate on a sea­son­al basis from 1 April to 30 Septem­ber inclus­ive each year. While it is recog­nised that there is a risk of fire at oth­er times of year this sea­son­al approach reflects sig­ni­fic­antly high­er vis­it­or num­bers in spring / sum­mer com­bined with more fre­quent warm weath­er that can encour­age more people to under­take activ­it­ies such as camp­ing or bar­be­cues and so the byelaw pri­or­it­ises restrict­ing the use of fires and bar­be­cues at this time.

Pur­pose

The Cairngorms Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw (here­after referred to as ​“the byelaw”) places restric­tions on people hav­ing fires or bar­be­cues in the Nation­al Park primar­ily in order to reduce the risk of wild­fires being star­ted by those activ­it­ies. How­ever, the byelaw also recog­nises the need to allow fires to be per­mit­ted for some pur­poses or for fires to be per­mit­ted in cer­tain loc­a­tions and a num­ber of defin­i­tions and exemp­tions are included in the byelaw to detail when this is the case. To provide fur­ther detail on those cir­cum­stances, this doc­u­ment has been pro­duced as a straight­for­ward guide to the exemp­tions and who has the power to use or per­mit the use of those exemp­tions as well as provid­ing fur­ther advice or guid­ance where con­sidered appropriate.

The role of land & prop­erty own­ers, ten­ants and occupiers

The byelaw imposes cer­tain reg­u­la­tions on mem­bers of the pub­lic in rela­tion to the use of fire on prop­erty where they don’t have express per­mis­sion. How­ever, it does not take away any of a landowner’s exist­ing powers to man­age their land in the way that they con­sider appro­pri­ate to their own cir­cum­stances. Landown­ers, or ten­ants where their lease per­mits it, con­tin­ue to have the right to decide if or when to use fire for land man­age­ment pur­poses. In par­tic­u­lar it should be noted that this byelaw does not have any dir­ect impact on activ­ity such as muir­burn which is covered by sep­ar­ate nation­al legislation.

Own­ers, ten­ants or occu­pi­ers also have the abil­ity to work with indi­vidu­als or with groups who wish to under­take activ­it­ies on their land and which may include the use of fires or bar­be­cues. This author­ity is expressed with­in the word­ing of the byelaw through a num­ber of exemp­tions. The Cairngorms Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw defines three groups of people who have powers either to have a fire or bar­be­cue or to per­mit oth­ers to do so:

• Landown­ers – where a landown­er is defined as ​“the own­er of any land or build­ing with­in or con­nec­ted to the Nation­al Park.”
• Occu­pi­ers – who are defined as ​“any per­son who is occupy­ing a dwell­ing­house or prop­erty with the con­sent of the landowner.”
• Ten­ants — who are defined as ​“the ten­ant of any land with­in the Nation­al Park leased or let to such ten­ant under a lease.”

In prac­tic­al terms this means that, in the case of domest­ic res­id­ences, these rights will apply not only to own­ers, but to the major­ity of res­id­ents as long as they are shar­ing the prop­erty with the con­sent of the own­er (eg a house share) or are rent­ing the prop­erty as either a domest­ic home or as a hol­i­day res­id­ence as long as there is some form of let or lease agree­ment in place.

The Park Authority’s Role

Using the powers avail­able to it, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity took on the lead role in con­sult­ing on, devel­op­ing and, with approv­al now received from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, intro­du­cing the byelaw. Fol­low­ing this, the Park Author­ity has been gran­ted the status of a ​“Spe­cial­ist Report­ing Agency” which allows it to sub­mit cases dir­ect to the Crown Office and Pro­cur­at­or Fisc­al Ser­vice who then makes an inde­pend­ent decision on wheth­er or not to take the case to court or wheth­er any oth­er action is deemed appro­pri­ate when tak­ing into account the cir­cum­stances that apply in that par­tic­u­lar case.

Fun­da­ment­ally, the inten­ded out­come of the fire byelaw is to reduce the risk to the people, wild­life and hab­it­ats of the Nation­al Park — with a num­ber of actions to reduce the num­ber of fires or bar­be­cues an import­ant ele­ment of achiev­ing this: -

• The Park Authority’s ranger ser­vice will under­take patrols across the Nation­al Park with a par­tic­u­lar emphas­is on loc­a­tions known to be used for recre­ation­al fires and barbecues.
• The emphas­is in all ranger patrols engage­ments will con­tin­ue to be to inform and advise people about the risk, par­tic­u­larly from recre­ation­al fires or bar­be­cues and the exist­ence of the byelaw with the inten­tion of get­ting any fires that are encountered extinguished.
• Where extin­guish­ing a fire is not pos­sible due to people refus­ing to com­ply with the advice giv­en, Park Author­ity rangers have the power to and when neces­sary will under­take enforce­ment action.
• Where con­sidered bene­fi­cial to do so the Park Authority’s ranger ser­vice may under­take patrols jointly with rangers from part­ner ranger ser­vices as this increases the oppor­tun­it­ies to under­take enforce­ment action if this is required.

The byelaw allows for the fact that there will be cir­cum­stances where people should legit­im­ately be able to have a fire or bar­be­cue, and these cir­cum­stances are recog­nised through a num­ber of exemp­tions. Those exemp­tions are based around the prin­ciple of per­mis­sion being giv­en by a recog­nised per­son who has the right to do so. How­ever, it is not con­sidered appro­pri­ate for the Park Author­ity to make decisions on indi­vidu­al requests as there will be many loc­al factors that may influ­ence wheth­er it is appro­pri­ate or reas­on­able for per­mis­sion to be gran­ted and what if any con­di­tions might be included. The ulti­mate respons­ib­il­ity for decid­ing wheth­er or not to grant an indi­vidu­al request for an exemp­tion rests with the landown­er or where appro­pri­ate the ten­ant or occu­pi­er not with the Park Author­ity. In this con­text the Park Authority’s role is there­fore to:

• Provid­ing advice to landown­ers, ten­ants and occu­pi­ers on exemp­tions and their use. This doc­u­ment is one ele­ment of the Park Authority’s ways of provid­ing that advice.
• Provid­ing advice to mem­bers of the pub­lic on exemp­tions where required.
• Dis­trib­ut­ing Scot­tish Fire & Res­cue ser­vice warn­ings and fur­ther advice dur­ing high fire risk peri­ods to help landown­ers and oth­ers make informed decisions on wheth­er the use of any exemp­tion is appro­pri­ate at that time
• Provid­ing ongo­ing advice in the light of any new or unfore­seen cir­cum­stances that arise – this will primar­ily be done through an FAQ sec­tion on the Park Authority’s website.

Exemp­tions – by type of property

Domest­ic properties

As long as it is under the con­trol of a per­son or per­sons who can be defined as the landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er of the dwell­ing­house, sec­tion 3(a) of the byelaw per­mits people to have a fire with­in the cur­til­age of a private dwell­ing­house with sec­tion 5(a) giv­ing equi­val­ent per­mis­sion in rela­tion to bar­be­cues. In this con­text the cur­til­age can be con­sidered to be any private garden area. This per­mis­sion is qual­i­fied by the respons­ib­il­ity for the fire to be under con­trol ​“so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, live­stock, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion.” In prac­tic­al terms this gives any res­id­ents the right to have a fire or bar­be­cue on their own prop­erty if it is done safely.

Hol­i­day accommodation

As described for domest­ic prop­er­ties above, sec­tions 3(a) and 5(a) of the byelaw allow the occu­pi­er of a dwell­ing­house to give per­mis­sion for a fire or bar­be­cue. Under the defin­i­tions con­tained with­in the byelaw ​“dwell­ing­house” expli­citly includes prop­er­ties used for short term lets under the Civic Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1982 (Licens­ing of Short-term Lets) order 2022 and ​“Occu­pi­er” means any per­son who is occupy­ing a dwell­ing­house or prop­erty with the con­sent of the landown­er. Any per­son rent­ing a hol­i­day prop­erty where there is an agree­ment or con­tract in place is there­fore deemed to be an occu­pi­er. Unless the terms and con­di­tions that are accep­ted as part of the book­ing of the hol­i­day prop­erty pro­hib­it or restrict the use of fires or bar­be­cues the per­son or per­sons occupy­ing the prop­erty can effect­ively give them­selves per­mis­sion to have a fire or bar­be­cue. As with Domest­ic Prop­er­ties above there is still a require­ment for any fire or bar­be­cue to be under con­trol for any per­mis­sion to be con­sidered valid.

Licenced cara­van & camp­ing sites

Sec­tion 3© per­mits fires and sec­tion 5(b) per­mits bar­be­cues as long as they are wholly con­tained ​“In a licensed cara­van site so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, live­stock, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion and has per­mis­sion from the own­er of the site.” The spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to licenced sites means only those sites issued by the loc­al author­ity under the Cara­van Sites and Con­trol of Devel­op­ment Act 1960 have this exemp­tion in place. This avoids the situ­ation where any­one camp­ing in oth­er loc­a­tions could claim that as they are camp­ing the loc­a­tion they are in can be con­sidered a camp­site and sub­sequently covered by this exemp­tion. As stated in the byelaw, fires and bar­be­cues can only allowed with ​“per­mis­sion from the own­er of the site”. This per­mis­sion may be giv­en fol­low­ing a spe­cif­ic indi­vidu­al request but could also be giv­en through the terms and con­di­tions for the use of the site that are accep­ted as part of a book­ing. As with Domest­ic Prop­er­ties above there is still a require­ment for any fire or bar­be­cue to be under con­trol for any per­mis­sion to be con­sidered valid.

Moun­tain­eer­ing Club huts or similar

A num­ber of moun­tain­eer­ing clubs have club huts in the Nation­al Park, and these are often let to oth­er clubs or organ­isa­tions as well as being used by club mem­bers. Sim­il­ar situ­ations may also apply to prop­er­ties owned and used by oth­er organ­isa­tions. Typ­ic­ally, these will be con­sidered as hos­tels and as such are not likely to be registered as short term lets under the Civic Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1982 (Licens­ing of Short-term Lets) order 2022 so the cir­cum­stances described above for hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion will not dir­ectly apply.

In the case of club mem­bers it is likely that use of any hut belong­ing to the club will be included as bene­fit of mem­ber­ship and there­fore use of the hut would be deemed to be tak­ing place with the own­ers con­sent (or lease hold­ers con­sent if the club lease the hut) and the user would be classed as an ​“occu­pi­er” under the defin­i­tion with­in the byelaw. When occupy­ing the prop­erty, club mem­bers can there­fore effect­ively give them­selves per­mis­sion to have a fire or barbecue.

Where a club hut is used by mem­bers of a club oth­er than the club own­ing or leas­ing the hut it is likely that a book­ing has been made with some form of con­tract in place and there­fore the hut is being occu­pied with the own­er or tenant’s con­sent. Again, the user would be classed as an ​“occu­pi­er” under the defin­i­tion with­in the byelaw and could effect­ively give them­selves per­mis­sion to have a fire or bar­be­cue. The excep­tion to this would be where the terms and con­di­tions that are accep­ted as part of the book­ing con­tract exclude the use of fires or bar­be­cues. As with Domest­ic Prop­er­ties above there is still a require­ment for any fire or bar­be­cue to be under con­trol for any per­mis­sion to be con­sidered valid.

Both­ies

While the term ​“bothy” is often used for many dif­fer­ent prop­erty types includ­ing staff accom­mod­a­tion or hol­i­day prop­er­ties, for the pur­poses of the byelaw there is a spe­cif­ic defin­i­tion in place and those not fall­ing with­in this defin­i­tion would require to be treated as domest­ic prop­er­ties or hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion where any exemp­tions were being con­sidered. Essen­tially the byelaw defin­i­tion only includes open / moun­tain bothy type prop­er­ties with the pre­cise defin­i­tion being: — ​“A build­ing of no more than two storeys which: i. Does not have any form of mains elec­tri­city, piped fuel sup­ply and piped mains water sup­ply. ii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest pub­lic road (with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 151 of the Roads (Scot­land) Act 1984). iii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest hab­it­able building.”

In the case of both­ies, there is a spe­cif­ic exemp­tion — sec­tion 3(b) that per­mits fires ​“In a fire­place in a bothy so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, live­stock, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion.” How­ever, there is no equi­val­ent exemp­tion for bar­be­cues (which would be used out­side a bothy rather than indoors in a fire­place) mean­ing bar­be­cues are still pro­hib­ited around bothies.

Organ­ised events and organ­ised groups

While the byelaw does not include any exemp­tions spe­cific­ally for organ­ised groups or events, it is recog­nised that the degree of organ­isa­tion with such usage is dif­fer­ent from more spon­tan­eous or cas­u­al use under Scot­tish Out­door Access Code prin­ciples. As such there are mech­an­isms included with­in the byelaw that allow those using land with spe­cif­ic per­mis­sion to be per­mit­ted to have fires or bar­be­cues where the landown­er or ten­ant con­siders this appro­pri­ate. Wheth­er a ten­ant has the right to grant per­mis­sion is not gov­erned by the byelaw itself but will instead be sub­ject to the indi­vidu­al terms of a ten­ancy agree­ment which will typ­ic­ally cla­ri­fy which party has rights in rela­tion to a much wider range of activ­it­ies and not just fires or barbecues.

Sec­tion 3 of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code which cov­ers ​“Exer­cising access rights respons­ibly” indic­ates that people should take extra care if organ­ising a group, an event or run­ning a busi­ness. This includes con­tact­ing land man­agers where ele­ments such as edu­ca­tion­al vis­its are con­cerned and ​“obtain­ing the per­mis­sion of the rel­ev­ant land man­agers if your event needs facil­it­ies or ser­vices”. The vast major­ity of organ­ised events will require some ​“new or tem­por­ary facil­it­ies and ser­vices” as defined in sec­tion 3.60 – and many group camps where facil­it­ies such as toi­lets will likely need provided could have sim­il­ar require­ments eg toi­lets or waste facil­it­ies. As such, organ­isers will likely be enga­ging with landown­ers in advance of their vis­it any­way and fur­ther guid­ance as to how requests to include fires or bar­be­cues might be con­sidered is giv­en below.

Events

It is par­tic­u­larly uncom­mon for an event to take place without some form of facil­it­ies or ser­vices being required even if these are as simple as a start ban­ner or sig­nage for a par­ti­cip­a­tion event or toi­lets or lit­ter bins for spec­tat­ors at oth­er events so it is nor­mal for organ­isers to have to make con­tact with landown­ers or man­agers. In respond­ing to such requests from event organ­isers it will be com­mon prac­tice for some form of con­tract to be put in place between the landown­er and the organ­iser and this would be the ideal place to detail any par­tic­u­lar inform­a­tion around fires or barbecues.

A con­tract between a landown­er / ten­ant and an event organ­iser is likely to mean the organ­iser could be con­sidered the occu­pi­er of the prop­erty for the peri­od for which the event takes place. How­ever under the terms of the byelaw the occu­pi­er of a prop­erty is only entitled to have a fire or bar­be­cue if done safely ​“and if an occu­pi­er has the writ­ten per­mis­sion of the appro­pri­ate landown­er or ten­ant” — defined in sec­tion 3(d) in rela­tion to fires or 4© in rela­tion to bar­be­cues. It will there­fore be neces­sary for any organ­iser wish­ing to have a fire or bar­be­cue to have expli­cit per­mis­sion for this rather than simply rely­ing on a con­tract that con­siders them to be the occu­pi­er of the prop­erty for the dur­a­tion of the event.

Organ­ised Groups

In con­sid­er­ing the scope of the byelaw it was recog­nised that there may be times where per­mit­ting a group to have a fire or bar­be­cue may be reas­on­able. In par­tic­u­lar, the Park Author­ity recog­nises the bene­fits that can be derived from edu­ca­tion­al vis­its as well as com­mer­cially oper­ated trips that include ele­ments such as ​“bush­craft” and teach­ing par­ti­cipants about the safe use of fire. Oth­er groups par­tic­u­larly those like Scouts or oth­er youth organ­isa­tions are also con­sidered to bring wider bene­fits in terms of great­er under­stand­ing of the coun­tryside and nature as well as men­tal health bene­fits for par­ti­cipants. As such, the Park Author­ity would encour­age landown­ers to respond pos­it­ively to such requests where it can be demon­strated that this can be done safely.

In recog­ni­tion of the fact that the Park Author­ity will not have detailed know­ledge of all the loc­al cir­cum­stances that will influ­ence the level of risk in any giv­en area at a giv­en time, the byelaw pur­posely gives the power to make decisions on what to per­mit to the appro­pri­ate landown­er or ten­ant. This is also designed to allow the landown­er or ten­ant, when grant­ing per­mis­sion to incor­por­ate any mit­ig­a­tion or safety meas­ures such as: -

• The pre­cise location(s) where a fire might be permitted
• What, if any, safety pre­cau­tions might be required such as, access to water sand etc to douse fires
• Any addi­tion­al require­ments such as qual­i­fic­a­tions or fire­fight­ing equipment
• Ensur­ing access to the site is pro­tec­ted to allow for any emer­gency access should an incid­ent occur

Out­door & Wood­land Learn­ing (OWL) Scot­land is a nation­al mem­ber­ship organ­isa­tion ded­ic­ated to increas­ing the use of Scotland’s out­door and wood­land envir­on­ments for learn­ing. OWL have pro­duced a fire guid­ance doc­u­ment, seen by many as the industry stand­ard for groups wish­ing to use fire as part of their pro­gramme. It is endorsed and used by mem­bers of the Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers Asso­ci­ation – the pro­fes­sion­al mem­ber­ship body for Rangers in Scot­land. Landown­ers and prop­erty man­agers seek­ing fur­ther guid­ance on work­ing with groups and what broad­er advice they might give to com­ple­ment any loc­al require­ments are recom­men­ded to con­sider using this guidance.

While not in itself a safety factor, care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of the prox­im­ity and suit­ab­il­ity of an area in rela­tion to oth­er pub­lic activ­ity should be con­sidered. While exemp­tions will per­mit fires in approved cir­cum­stances, the details of any arrange­ments are unlikely to be known to the wider pub­lic which could lead them to believe it is appro­pri­ate for them to also have a fire or bar­be­cue if they see oth­ers doing so. Ded­ic­ated loc­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly for group camps that are away from and not too vis­ible from the passing pub­lic are likely to make it easi­er for landown­ers and oth­ers to man­age this.

Com­mer­cial Operators

Many com­mer­cial oper­at­ors will effect­ively be a sub­set of the above clas­si­fic­a­tion of ​“group” as those the cli­ents they are work­ing with or host­ing will often con­sti­tute a group. How­ever, par­tic­u­larly with small group camp­ing activ­it­ies that could still fall with­in the SOAC defin­i­tion of wild camp­ing ie ​“light­weight, done in small num­bers and only for two or three nights in any one place” an oper­at­or may be able to go about their nor­mal busi­ness without engage­ment with the landown­er. While able to under­take most activ­ity under SOAC rights, if done respons­ibly there be some who do wish to include some form of fire with­in their pro­gramme and as such may need to seek per­mis­sion. The Park Author­ity would encour­age landown­ers to respond pos­it­ively to such requests where it can be demon­strated that this can be done safely as there are likely to be longer term bene­fits through the learn­ing that people get from this type of experience.

Provid­ing evid­ence of the grant­ing of an exemption

To guard against oppor­tun­ists claim­ing to have been giv­en such per­mis­sion when they have not, the byelaw spe­cific­ally defines that this per­mis­sion must be in writ­ing so that proof of per­mis­sion can be reques­ted when required. For this pur­pose, ​“writ­ten” can be con­sidered to include elec­tron­ic mes­sages such as e‑mails or elec­tron­ic ver­sions of let­ters, agree­ments or con­tracts sent as attachments.

The byelaw does not pre­scribe how writ­ten per­mis­sion should be provided and as such gives some flex­ib­il­ity to landown­ers or ten­ants to provide this in a way that suits their own require­ments. In par­tic­u­lar this will allow landown­ers or ten­ants who choose to do so to give per­mis­sion for mul­tiple vis­its at the one time. This may be a use­ful approach for part­ner organ­isa­tions who vis­it reg­u­larly or mul­tiple times in a year. Irre­spect­ive of wheth­er the byelaw applies or wheth­er any reg­u­lar exemp­tion is in force it will nor­mally be neces­sary to pro­hib­it fires at times of high­er fire risk and so any agree­ment should reflect the fact that per­mis­sion may only be val­id at cer­tain times.

As provid­ing per­mis­sion for an activ­ity on their land will be con­sidered a stand­ard ele­ment of the man­age­ment of their prop­erty, there is no require­ment for landown­ers or ten­ants that grant per­mis­sion for a fire or bar­be­cue to noti­fy the Park Author­ity of any per­mis­sion they have gran­ted. How­ever, those organ­isa­tions or groups that are gran­ted per­mis­sion should be advised to bring evid­ence of per­mis­sion with them as they may be approached by people such as Park Author­ity rangers or Police or Scot­tish Fire & Res­cue Ser­vice officers involved in fire man­age­ment activities.

Stoves

In con­sid­er­ing the intro­duc­tion of the byelaw it was recog­nised that many people will under­take multi day trips in or through the Cairngorms, back­pack­ing, bike­pack­ing, canoe­ing etc and that a means of cook­ing food would be required for com­fort and safety. In order to allow this in the way that was con­sidered low­est risk, the use of cook­ing stoves is there­fore covered by an exemp­tion in the byelaw. How­ever, this exemp­tion is not designed to allow sol­id fuel stoves such as those used for heat­ing some vehicles or tents. Sec­tion 4 of the byelaw there­fore states that ​“These byelaws shall not pre­vent the use of a camp­ing stove man­u­fac­tured as a camp­ing stove or cook­er (exclud­ing any wood or coal-based sys­tem), provided it is used in such a man­ner as not to cause danger of, or dam­age by, fire.”

While the use of the types of sol­id fuel stoves typ­ic­ally used for heat­ing is not covered by the byelaw exemp­tion, the exemp­tions allow­ing use with the con­sent of a landown­er described above would still apply and so for example organ­ised trips / groups involving camp­ing in a ​“hot tent” could still take place where such per­mis­sion is given.

Gas bar­be­cues

While each of the exemp­tions described above restrict the use of bar­be­cues with­in the byelaw peri­od, it should be noted that these restric­tions do not apply to gas bar­be­cues as long as these are used appro­pri­ately. Sec­tion 6 of the byelaw states that ​“These byelaws shall not pre­vent the use of a gas bar­be­cue, provided it is used in such a man­ner as not to cause danger of, or dam­age by, fire.”

Explain­ing why some fires or bar­be­cues are allowed

While there is a risk-based rationale for why the byelaw allows per­mis­sion to be giv­en for some fires or bar­be­cues it is expec­ted that many mem­bers of the pub­lic will observe oth­ers hav­ing a fire and may query why they can­not do so as well. If responses to those quer­ies can emphas­ise the dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances that apply this is likely to be help­ful in ensur­ing com­pli­ance — par­tic­u­larly if there can be an ele­ment of con­sist­ency where responses may be giv­en by mul­tiple part­ners. To assist it is recom­men­ded that any response provided in rela­tion to a query should emphasise:

• These are events / vis­its planned in advance so the par­ti­cipants can be dir­ec­ted to suit­able sites which have been iden­ti­fied as being low risk.
• Addi­tion­al safety meas­ures are or can be put in place as part of the arrangement.
• Landown­ers are aware in advance of what is hap­pen­ing and where it is hap­pen­ing so can have staff and / or equip­ment avail­able if required — which dif­fers sig­ni­fic­antly from the wider pub­lic tak­ing access on a more cas­u­al basis.
• Hav­ing pri­or engage­ment with and con­tact details for those attend­ing can allow landown­ers to noti­fy those involved on any changed cir­cum­stances that mean a fire is no longer appro­pri­ate – for example if a high fire risk warn­ing has been issued.
• Organ­ised groups will typ­ic­ally be led by people who have under­gone more form­al train­ing and / or have qual­i­fic­a­tions that incor­por­ate ele­ments of safe fire use where­as there will be a much wider range of know­ledge and skills where mem­bers of the gen­er­al pub­lic are concerned.

Fires & bar­be­cues out­side the peri­od the byelaw applies

The fire byelaw spe­cific­ally cov­ers the peri­od from 1 April until 30 Septem­ber as this is the peri­od when risk is con­sidered high­er due to the com­bin­a­tion of fire risk, weath­er and high­er vis­it­or num­bers. How­ever, the risk of fire still remains out­side this peri­od so appro­pri­ate advice will still require to be given.

In nor­mal cir­cum­stances the guid­ance con­tained with­in the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code will apply while dur­ing peri­ods of heightened fire risk the nor­mal mes­sage will be that fires should not be used. Where mem­bers of the pub­lic fail to com­ply with advice at such times, enforce­ment options through SOAC are very lim­ited but any more ser­i­ous incid­ents where there is con­sidered to be a risk to people or prop­erty should be escal­ated to Police Scot­land or the Scot­tish Fire & Res­cue Ser­vice as described below.

Report­ing of fires

For most fire or bar­be­cue related incid­ents, engage­ment by prop­erty staff with the people involved to try and get the fire extin­guished is recom­men­ded – but only where this is con­sidered safe to do. Where the per­pet­rat­ors choose not to com­ply, landown­ers or oth­er staff may wish to report this and the choice of who to report this to and how to do so will depend on the circumstances.

1. Where there may be an imme­di­ate risk to people or prop­erty — for example if you are con­cerned about a live or smoul­der­ing fire call 999 and ask for the fire ser­vice and provide them with the location.
2. In a non-emer­gency situ­ation but where the situ­ation could or is likely to escal­ate and cause a risk to people or prop­erty or if you see or sus­pect any­one act­ing sus­pi­ciously call Police Scot­land on 101 or Crimestop­pers on 0800 555 111. Sec­tion 56 of the Civic Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1982 states that ​“Any per­son who lays or lights a fire in a pub­lic place so as to endanger any oth­er per­son or give him reas­on­able cause for alarm or annoy­ance or so as to endanger any prop­erty shall be guilty of an offence”. Enforce­ment of this lies with Police Scot­land who are fully trained and equipped to deal with such high­er risk situ­ations and as such report­ing these situ­ations to them as described above is the recom­men­ded approach.
3. For oth­er incid­ents that do not pose an imme­di­ate danger or which are not con­sidered likely to escal­ate – for example if you find evid­ence of a recent fire that is cold, this does not need to be repor­ted, how­ever if you know the land man­ager or see a ranger it may be help­ful to men­tion it to them and share the loc­a­tion. It is import­ant to note that the Park Author­ity can­not act as a fur­ther ​“emer­gency ser­vice” to be called to invest­ig­ate ser­i­ous incid­ents but will record any reports and this type of intel­li­gence will be used in plan­ning future ranger patrols. Such inform­a­tion is also valu­able in help­ing meas­ure the effect­ive­ness of the byelaw and related activity.

Fire report­ing matrix

Type of incid­ent	Report to	Report­ing method
Emer­gency or incid­ent caus­ing a danger to people or property	Police Scot­land / Scot­tish Fire & Res­cue Service	999
Lower-level incid­ents con­sidered likely to escal­ate or sus­pi­cious activity	Police Scot­land	101 or Crimestop­pers on 0800 555 111.
Low level incid­ents not requir­ing attendance	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ranger Service	rangers@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Fur­ther advice and information

This doc­u­ment is the first ver­sion of an advice guide for land and prop­erty own­ers, man­agers and occu­pi­ers issued on 13 March 2026. It gives advice on the ele­ments of the legis­la­tion and wider advice based on pre­dicted quer­ies and ques­tions already raised by landown­ers and part­ners but, once the byelaw comes into force on 1 April 2026 it is likely that oth­er situ­ations may arise and updated guid­ance may be required.

In these cir­cum­stances any addi­tion­al guid­ance will be added promptly to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site — www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk/​fires — nor­mally by adding to the list of FAQs. Peri­od­ic updates to his doc­u­ment will also be made as required.

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Appendix 1: Cairngorms Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw

Gen­er­al

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, con­sti­tuted under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Des­ig­na­tion, Trans­ition­al and Con­sequen­tial Pro­vi­sions (Scot­land) Order 2003, and hav­ing its prin­cip­al offices at 14 The Square, Grant­own-on-Spey, Moray, PH26 3HG (“the Author­ity”), in exer­cise of the powers con­ferred upon it by Para­graph eight of Sched­ule Two to the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 hereby makes the fol­low­ing byelaws:

Cita­tion and application

a) These byelaws may be cited as The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Fire Man­age­ment Byelaws 2025. b) These byelaws shall apply between the dates of 01 April and 30 Septem­ber in each cal­en­dar year (both dates inclus­ive) with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (“the Nation­al Park”).

Defin­i­tions and interpretations

1. In these byelaws, the fol­low­ing words, phrases and expres­sions have the inter­pret­a­tion and mean­ing hereby assigned to them, respectively:

   • “Bar­be­cue” means an appli­ance or rack on which food is cooked out of doors over an open fire and shall include a dis­pos­able bar­be­cue, wheth­er man­u­fac­tured as such or oth­er­wise. It shall not include a gas barbecue.
   • “Bothy” means a build­ing of no more than two storeys which: i. Does not have any form of mains elec­tri­city, piped fuel sup­ply and piped mains water sup­ply. ii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest pub­lic road (with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 151 of the Roads (Scot­land) Act 1984). iii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest hab­it­able building.
   • “Cur­til­age” means land which is used for the com­fort­able enjoy­ment of a build­ing, and which is suf­fi­cient to allow those occupy­ing the build­ing to have reas­on­able meas­ures of pri­vacy and to ensure that their enjoy­ment of the build­ing is not unreas­on­ably disturbed.
   • “Dwell­ing­house” means a res­id­en­tial prop­erty includ­ing a build­ing con­tain­ing one or more flats, or a flat con­tained with­in such a build­ing and includ­ing such prop­erty when used for short-term let in terms of the Civic Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1982 (Licens­ing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022.
   • “Fire­place” means a struc­ture (includ­ing wood burn­ing stove) that is designed to con­tain a fire and is made of brick, stone, met­al or any oth­er material.
   • “Landown­er” means the own­er of any land or build­ing with­in or con­nec­ted to the Nation­al Park.
   • “Licensed” means hold­ing a val­id licence issued under the Cara­van Sites and Con­trol of Devel­op­ment Act 1960.
   • “Occu­pi­er” means any per­son who is occupy­ing a dwell­ing­house or prop­erty with the con­sent of the landowner.
   • “Prop­erty” includes both land and built infrastructure.
   • “Ten­ant” means the ten­ant of any land with­in the Nation­al Park leased or let to such ten­ant under a lease.

Fire

1. It shall be an offence under these byelaws for any per­son without law­ful author­ity to light, have or tend a fire in the Nation­al Park, or place or throw or let fall a lighted match, fire­work or any oth­er thing so as to be likely to cause a fire, unless the fire is wholly contained:

   a) With­in the cur­til­age of a private dwell­ing­house and