EIR/202600510805 · FOI/EIR · not held
Data concerning wildfires and precautionary burns: EIR release
Information requested
1. How many precautionary burns took place during the burning seasons of
1. 2024-5 2. 2025-6
2. How many wildfires occurred
1. In 2024 2. In 2025
Response
As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.
This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.
Question 1
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore, we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.
The terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held), allows public authorities to refuse to make environmental information available if they don’t hold the information when the request is received.
This exception is subject to the public interest test, and we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the number of precautionary burns being conducted, clearly, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.
Question 2
The number of recorded wildfires held by the Scottish Government are
2020 - 103 2021 - 143 2022 - 146 2023 - 145 2024 - 55 2025 – 238*
*Please note that the 2025 figures are subject to change and only cover the incidents that have so far been completed on the Incident Recording System. It usually takes around 6 weeks for the majority of incidents to be filled in and this is an unknown number. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service releases official incident statistics annually every October via its website. About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. Therefore, we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.
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