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Emergency Alert About Wildfires (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by thehatfox@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
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Nearly jumped out my skin a few minutes ago when sirens started blaring. The emergency alert system just triggered, with this generic message about wildfires.

Not any actual impending ones about to burn my house down. Just the general possibility. Because of a heatwave nobody has apparently noticed.

Thought the bomb was about to drop for a second. Has nobody in our government heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?

Sorry if this is venting but this rather caught me by surprise.

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[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 points 12 hours ago

I wonder how many people crashed their cars trying to figure out if they were about to be obliterated in a nuclear inferno.

This was supposed to be for emergencies, not PSAs.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 30 points 23 hours ago

"Please don't start wildfires" isn't a good reason to set off the modern equivalent of an air raid siren. I hope this isn't a trend as people will be more likely to disable the system.

An emergency alert like this should only be used if there is an actual danger. Ideally localised which IIRC this system can be, so if the local national park had an out of control wildfire I would be fine with a county wide alert going out about it.

[-] Guilvareux@feddit.uk 14 points 22 hours ago

Completely agree. I was personally a little annoyed at this usage. There can actually be consequences for some people to have a very sudden, loud, intrusive noise.

[-] isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 19 hours ago

If nothing else, how about just the increased risk of car accidents that comes from more people being sleep-deprived after being woken up in the middle of the night by a warning siren?

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 points 15 hours ago

It was early evening that most went off, although some people got it hours later. Also it seems like it was sent out twice.

Was at an open mic night and occasionally heard some going off hours later.

[-] flamingos@feddit.uk 61 points 1 day ago

This is such a weird use of this system. Months of wildfires and Labours first action is to send a phone alert that amounts to 'only you can stop wildfires.'

[-] jackal@feddit.uk 6 points 14 hours ago

Even better, an hour or two after it was sent a local business set off fireworks. Fucking stupidity everywhere.

[-] thehatfox@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago

They only brought in a ban on disposal BBQs today after dithering about it for ages.

A reluctance to do anything practical but they are very trigger happy in abusing an emergency alert system.

[-] dgriffith@aussie.zone 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Do you guys have any sort of "fire ban/fire restriction" legislation? It sounds like you don't have normal channels of communication for this kind of thing, hence the emergency alerts.

Maybe your government can do a bit of copy and paste from Australia, eg this is my "fire info" page for my home state of Queensland, showing which shire council areas currently have a fire ban in place.

All this stuff is enforced via legislation at state level here, which you don't have a direct equivalent of. Probably something higher than shire councils and lower than UK parliament would deal with it over there as it's broadly region based. Once it's legislated with various steps between "all ok" and "don't even light a match", the decision to enforce a ban doesn't take much dithering about. Here bans can be put in place by the Queensland fire department at their discretion so politicians keep out of it.

We also have signs like these sprinkled around the place so that people know when it's not a great time to be having a bonfire. In Australia that usually ends up being one continuous block between October and March.

[-] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

We more have "flood action plans", "flood alerts" and so on, because generally speaking, our problem is too much water, not too much fire. I can't remember there ever being "wildfires" in the UK ever (doesn't mean it didn't happen). How would anything set on fire when everything is permanently wet?

So in a way this is either a freakish one-off anomaly, or this now normal for every year of the rest of our lives.

I'm still expecting our traditional floods and deadly wind storms in a few weeks.

[-] Disregard3145@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

Don't expect traditional floods. The dead, crispy, grass and plants everywhere means landslides and goodness knows what to the structures around them.

[-] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 1 points 12 hours ago

Also the dry, solid mud surface won't absorb water very easily, so the water will flow over it instead of soaking into it. Basically all our "soakaway" is possibly compromised.

[-] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 2 points 14 hours ago

Its ok, we'll be having both for the rest of our lives.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 points 23 hours ago

Most places that do ban fires here just ban them all year round. Never seen them compare different types of fire either, its always any flame is banned if they do. As if a camp fire and camping stove are the same risk...

Obviously with how dry things are in a lot of places right now I get banning all fires. But in January after a week of endless rain the same signs are there.

[-] Archimedes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

What practical things would you have them do?

[-] DakRalter 3 points 13 hours ago

Make the fossil fuel industry pay for solar panels.

[-] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Felt like an underlining of their new policy to ~~ban~~ adjust the guidelines to voluntarily stop the use of disposable BBQs. They are under a lot of pressure to actually do some mitigation since water is running low and crops are failed but apparently this was the actual action, banning BBQs and alerting everyone to that new guideline!!!

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 points 23 hours ago

Only disposable BBQs, which I support because they are shit to cook on.

[-] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 5 points 20 hours ago

Guys, you are now living in Australia.

[-] G4Z@feddit.uk 21 points 1 day ago

Well, if that's what it's going to be used for then I've switched it off. Stupid use of the system.

On android search emergency alerts in your settings.

[-] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Even if you switch it off, you will get notifications most of the time because the gov can just enforce them to be received so you may aswell just re-enable it to be sure to not lose anything

[-] DakRalter 13 points 1 day ago

Thanks, I didn't realise there was an option to disable it.

You'd think they'd save this klaxon style alert for imminent danger, not "don't use barbecues". What the hell.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 4 points 23 hours ago

Yeah, I won't turn it off for a single unnecessary alert but if they keep using it for stuff like this I probably will.

Are they going to give us alerts to drive safely next?

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago

All mine are swtched off.

They still come through in BC Canada. Doesn't care about the settings; they all play anyway.

Amber Alerts, Emergency Warnings, Tests, all of them play regardless.

There's been 6 here, since May this year. 2 of those were between 12am and 1am.

[-] G4Z@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

At that point, I would just switch it off at night.

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

It's my alarm.

[-] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This proved they will just use it for announcing their latest damp squib policies so zero point keeping it on, they are only going to abuse it.

[-] KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

Damp squib*

[-] Archimedes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

What could go wrong

[-] hedders@fedia.io 17 points 1 day ago

Well, anyone with a secret phone they're e.g. hiding from an abusive spouse has had that blown, haven't they? But at least they now know portable barbecues and fireworks are a Not Very Good Idea when the country is basically a tinderbox. So, there's that.

[-] MurrayL@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

There were months of warning about the emergency alert system when it was introduced for exactly that reason, including widely-publicised instructions on how to turn them off.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

The guidance has been around for a while now to disable alerts on secret phones. We can't just not send out alert messages because of this.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 4 points 23 hours ago

Yeah but this alert was just a request to not start forest fires.

[-] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

However it does seem people still aren't getting that.

[-] Archimedes@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago

That's on them🤷

[-] ech@lemmy.ca 4 points 21 hours ago

Literal birthplace of the Oxford Comma and they still don't use it. Smh my head.

[-] lycanrising@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

went through the same emotion range. from oh shit it’s going down to “you interrupted me for that?”

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 1 points 23 hours ago

Yep, we assumed incoming attack. Then saw it was nothing.

[-] Tweak@feddit.uk 3 points 23 hours ago

I had a second fucking alert a few hours later.

[-] TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social 6 points 1 day ago

The tea time alert will be next.

[-] lath@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

The dullness of bureaucracy will smooth out even the sharpest of minds.

[-] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago

Yeah this proper shit me up! Is it the first time this system has been used in anger?

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Anger?

[-] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

Not used in a test scenario.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No, they have been used plenty of times for storms, a few times for flooding, and once for a WWII bomb

https://www.gov.uk/alerts/past-alerts

[-] Jack@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

"placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk"

Priorities...

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

I am in Northern Ireland, so out of scope of it - yet I heard it come through on BBC Radio 4

this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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