Recreational fire byelaw - the story so far

Recre­ation­al fire byelaw – the story so far

Last updated on 19 March 2026

In 2024, the Park Author­ity con­sul­ted on the poten­tial intro­duc­tion of a recre­ation­al fire byelaw, which would make it an offence to light a fire or barbe­que with­in the Nation­al Park at cer­tain times of year. Over 1,600 people took part in the con­sulta­tion, with 79% sup­port­ing the intro­duc­tion of a byelaw, 16% against and 5% unsure. The Park Author­ity did not express a pref­er­ence dur­ing this con­sulta­tion, but the res­ults gave the Park Author­ity a man­date for change. You can read a sum­mary of the con­sulta­tion res­ults here.

Draw­ing on feed­back from the gen­er­al pub­lic, landown­ers and part­ners, the Park Author­ity board agreed on 28 June 2024 to devel­op a sea­son­al fire man­age­ment byelaw, which would last from 1 April to 30 Septem­ber each year. This decision was based on feed­back from the con­sulta­tion, which sug­ges­ted that the approach should be easy to com­mu­nic­ate, not per­ceived as heavy-handed and cov­er the peri­od with the greatest risk.

As required by the legis­la­tion, a fur­ther pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the draft word­ing of the byelaw was car­ried out from 23 Septem­ber to 16 Decem­ber 2024. A total of 109 responses were received from a mix of res­id­ents, vis­it­ors, land man­agers and part­ners. Writ­ten responses were received from a fur­ther 10 indi­vidu­als or organ­isa­tions, and dir­ect dis­cus­sions were held with Police Scot­land, the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice and the Scot­tish Wild­fire For­um. You can read a sum­mary of these responses here.

In response to a couple of the sug­ges­tions made in these con­sulta­tion responses – and fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with Police Scot­land and the advice of the Park Authority’s leg­al advisers – the pro­posed word­ing was subtly adjus­ted and signed off by the board on 14 Feb­ru­ary 2025. This word­ing, togeth­er with sup­ple­ment­ary evid­ence, was sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in March 2025 and mem­bers of the pub­lic were giv­en until Sunday 18 May to com­ment or object to the proposal.

Hav­ing fully con­sidered the pro­pos­als, includ­ing the two objec­tions sub­mit­ted, Mar­ie Gougeon MSP — Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Rur­al Affairs, Land Reform and Islands — approved the byelaw on 25 Septem­ber 2025.

In pre­par­a­tion for the byelaw com­ing into force the fol­low­ing April, the Park Author­ity and its part­ners took for­ward a range of meas­ures. These included:

• Enforce­ment and train­ing — work­ing with Police Scot­land and the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice to pre­pare for robust enforce­ment of the byelaw, includ­ing enhanced patrols at key sites and an extens­ive train­ing pro­gramme for rangers on the ground.
• Wild­fire com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paign — devel­op­ing a tar­geted wild­fire com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paign, includ­ing per­man­ent and tem­por­ary sig­nage, leaf­lets, press activ­ity and social media advertising.
• Sig­nage at key loc­a­tions — work­ing with loc­al coun­cils to put in place road signs at key entrance points and hot­spots, inform­ing people that there are no fires or bar­be­cues allowed.
• Work­ing with part­ners — coordin­at­ing activ­ity across estates, pub­lic bod­ies, NGOs, busi­nesses and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park to ensure a joined-up approach to inform­a­tion shar­ing on fire risk, the upcom­ing byelaw and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code.

Whilst the intro­duc­tion of a byelaw is just one addi­tion­al tool in the box, it allows the Park Author­ity to pro­gress a range of sig­ni­fic­ant wild­fire mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures, along­side the UK’s first Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan.