Police stand down major incident after Cairngorms wildfire evacuations
Residents in Nethy Bridge were cleared to return after a Cairngorms wildfire, as police stood down the major incident and emergency crews kept watch for flare-ups.
Police Scotland stood down the major incident after the Cairngorms wildfire that forced evacuations around Glenmore and Nethy Bridge. Residents in Nethy Bridge were told they could return to their properties after a multi-agency response to the blaze.
The fire broke out near Glenmore in the Cairngorms National Park and spread through an area where homes, campsites and ski resorts in Glenmore Forest Park were closed and evacuated. A small area of properties north-west of Dorback Lodge, known as Lain Thatchan, was evacuated as a precaution while crews dealt with the fire.
Cairngorm Mountain Resort said its mountain access road and facilities were closed because of the wildfire, adding to disruption across the park’s visitor network. Police Scotland’s major incident designation came while firefighting continued and officials monitored smoke advisories, wind changes and the risk of flare-ups in the exclusion zone.
The Scottish Government’s Resilience Room, SGoRR, met to discuss the incident as the response broadened beyond the fire ground. The scale of the operation underlined how quickly a wildfire in the Cairngorms can move from a local blaze to a wider emergency affecting settlements, transport links and tourism sites across Strath Nethy, Boat of Garten and the approaches to Aviemore and Grantown-on-Spey.
The incident also landed in the middle of a period of heightened fire risk across Scotland. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service warned in July 2025 of an extreme wildfire risk between Friday 11 July and Monday 14 July, and had earlier said in May that areas of Scotland faced very high to extreme risk. Its wildfire campaign materials say almost 80% of large outdoor fires since 2010 were recorded between March and May, a pattern that has pushed fire planning, land management and public warnings higher up the agenda.
The Cairngorms National Park Authority has already introduced rules banning fires and barbecues across the park to reduce wildfire risk. After the evacuees in Nethy Bridge were allowed back, the focus shifted from evacuation to recovery, with residents and businesses left to assess the damage and work through the aftermath of a fire that had cut across one of Scotland’s most heavily visited mountain areas.
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