The scale, duration and complexity of the Langdale wildfire created significant internal communication demands across the Service. Effective communication was essential to maintain organisational awareness, support operational decision making and ensure staff understood the evolving impact of the incident on service delivery.

During the early stages of the incident, the communications function did not always receive timely updates from the incident ground, reflecting the rapidly evolving nature of the response and the operational pressures being experienced by commanders. This occasionally made it more challenging to maintain situational awareness and provide consistent updates across the organisation. As the incident developed, improvements in information flow, coordination and communication between operational and communications functions strengthened organisational awareness and supported more effective internal communications.

The sustained nature of the response required regular communication with operational personnel, managers, support functions and strategic leaders regarding incident developments, resource commitments, welfare arrangements and organisational impacts. However, the scale of external communications activity required to support partners, the media and the public meant that internal communications were, at times, afforded a lower priority. As a result, some departments were not always fully aware of how the incident was affecting the day-to-day activities of other teams across the Service.

As communications arrangements matured, governance and coordination requirements increased to support effective decision making and organisational oversight. Whilst these arrangements provided assurance and consistency, the incident highlighted the importance of maintaining an appropriate balance between governance and agility to ensure information can be shared quickly and effectively across the organisation during fast-moving incidents.

The incident also reinforced the importance of sufficient communications capacity and resilience during prolonged emergencies. The demands placed upon the communications function were significant and extended over several weeks. The Service had already recognised the need to strengthen capacity within this area and was progressing additional communications resource prior to the incident. The experience gained during the wildfire further demonstrated the value of enhanced resilience and capacity to support both internal and external communications during major incidents.

The learning identified presents an opportunity to further strengthen information flow,
organisational awareness and communications resilience during prolonged and complex incidents.

What Worked Well

• Internal communication arrangements adapted and improved as the incident developed
• Governance and oversight arrangements supported informed decision making and organisational awareness.

Learning Opportunities

• Embed regular internal updates from the outset to improve Service-wide awareness of operational impacts
• Strengthen communications resilience and capacity to sustain delivery during prolonged incidents
• Integrate the communications function more closely with incident ground information flows to improve situational awareness and organisational