Letter to retailers about fire byelaw - Apr 2026

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3HG

T: 01479 873 535

31 March 2026

Dear retail­er,

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw

As you may have seen from the recent pub­li­city and media cov­er­age, a new fire man­age­ment byelaw is com­ing into force, mean­ing that from 1 April to 30 Septem­ber each year, fires and bar­be­cues are banned in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

In the Cairngorms – as in so many places around the world – our weath­er pat­terns are chan­ging. In sum­mer we’ve exper­i­enced more severe hot spells and drought, mak­ing the threat of wild­fire great­er than ever before. The Nation­al Park is home to pre­cious land­scapes, rare wild­life and more than 18,000 people so a wild­fire has the poten­tial to be devastating.

People often ask us what they can do to pro­tect and look after this spe­cial place. One of the most straight­for­ward answers is ​“don’t light fires” and we know from our earli­er con­sulta­tion on the byelaw that the vast major­ity of loc­al people and busi­nesses sup­port this approach.

While the byelaw brings with it the oppor­tun­ity for enforce­ment when that is required, our primary ambi­tion is to reduce the num­ber of fires. To this end, our cur­rent focus is a sig­ni­fic­ant cam­paign to raise aware­ness of the byelaw and encour­age com­pli­ance. Many of our vis­it­ors and of course loc­al people are likely to vis­it your busi­ness and we’re hop­ing you will assist by help­ing to spread the word about the fire man­age­ment byelaw.

There are a num­ber of ways you could do this including:

• Dis­play­ing posters such as those enclosed in your premises (fur­ther cop­ies are avail­able as described below if required).
• Use of oth­er pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­als in your premises or with your customers.
• Includ­ing ref­er­ences to or details of the byelaw in your own rel­ev­ant pub­li­city material.
• Sup­port­ing the social media cam­paign through your own posts or repost­ing our fire byelaw posts to increase the reach.

One fur­ther area where there has been loc­al pres­sure for us to act is around the sale of dis­pos­able bar­be­cues which are seen as being a high­er risk – par­tic­u­larly as some are used to start a camp­fire after use or are dis­posed of irre­spons­ibly. While the Park Author­ity does not have powers to ban their sale, we would ask you to con­sider no longer stock­ing dis­pos­able bar­be­cues in your stores with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. If you did stop stock­ing them, we would be happy to explore part­ner­ship PR oppor­tun­it­ies to spread the word about your busi­ness’ involve­ment in the campaign.

In order to assist busi­nesses, we have cre­ated a suite of mater­i­als includ­ing posters, phys­ic­al dis­play mater­i­als and social media assets which can be down­loaded or ordered from cairngorms​.co​.uk/​fires. You can also con­tact us at haveyoursay@​cairngorms.​co.​uk to request spe­cif­ic items or addi­tion­al material.

Thanks for your help on this import­ant issue.

Kind regards,

Grant Moir Chief Executive