Scotland’s biggest national park has been branded a “tinderbox” as landowners claim they are untrained and ill-equipped to put out fires, which have almost doubled in the area since 2010.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) has accused Cairngorms National Park leaders of putting them and visitors at risk as the threat of wildfires increases.
The national park is considering introducing new laws that ban the lighting of open fires and barbecues.
Yet members of the SGA claim that park leaders are overly dependent on a presumption that, should a large wildfire rage, local gamekeepers and land managers will “bail them out”.
Landowners and rangers are expected to put up signs, patrol the ground and extinguish recreational fires when needed.
Bob Connelly, an SGA gamekeeper, said
