Islamic State supporters urged to start wildfires and ‘overwhelm’ emergency services in chilling arson attack guide

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The forum, which LBC has chosen not to name because of the nature of the material it contains, hosts a mixture of Arabic and English extremist content, including Islamic State propaganda and discussions between supporters of the terrorist organisation.

Among the material seen by LBC is a lengthy guide titled “Burn down your first forest and exhaust the workers of the tyrant”, which gives would-be attackers detailed advice on preparing for and deliberately starting wildfires.

The series of posts urge supporters to take advantage of conditions in which wildfires are particularly dangerous and emergency services may already be under significant pressure.

It also contains extensive instructions intended to help an attacker avoid surveillance, conceal their identity and movements and frustrate attempts by forensic investigators to establish who started a fire.

LBC is not publishing those sections in detail because they amount to practical instructions for committing arson and evading detection.

Responding to our investigation, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We take all threats posed to British interests and lives seriously. Our police and security services are backed by some of the strongest counter terrorism powers in the world, and they work tirelessly to defend the UK against the range of hostile threats we face.”

The department said police and security agencies had disrupted 19 late-stage terrorist attack plots since the beginning of 2020 and stressed that Britain’s counter-terrorism legislation is kept under constant review as threats evolve.

It also pointed to duties imposed on online services by the Online Safety Act, saying platforms are legally required to tackle illegal material including content amounting to incitement to violence and terrorism.

Read more: Cause of wildfires which destroyed 19 homes in West Midlands revealed

Read more: Major grassfire breaks out in south London as more than 100 firefighters race to tackle blaze

Moustafa Ayad, Executive Director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and its Research Chair in Global Islamism and Counter-Terrorism, told LBC that calls for supporters to use arson have been a recurring feature of Islamic State propaganda for years.

He said the tactic could be traced back at least as far as 2017, when Islamic State's Rumiyah magazine published material encouraging arson attacks as part of its “Just Terror Tactics” series.

More recently, he said, the group's official al-Naba newsletter called in April this year for churches and synagogues in the United States and Europe to be set on fire over Easter.

Islamic State propaganda also sought to exploit the devastating Los Angeles fires in 2025, with supporters urged to start further fires while unofficial propaganda outlets amplified the message.

Mr Ayad said: “Arson is seen as low threshold, in terms of the capabilities necessary to perpetrate an arson, and high yield in terms of its potential for terrorist violence and mayhem, and hence the group wants to inspire its supporters globally to take part in these attacks whenever they can.”

He added that Islamic State affiliates have themselves used fire during campaigns of violence elsewhere in the world, including burning villages, churches and marshland.

The discovery by LBC comes at an especially dangerous moment for Britain. Just two weeks ago, millions of people across England and Wales were sent an emergency alert warning them not to carry out any activity which could spark another wildfire, including using disposable barbecues, firepits, garden incinerators or fireworks.

The warning began appearing on mobile phones in what ministers described as “the most extensive use” of Britain's emergency alert system in response to an active incident.

It followed a devastating wildfire in Stourbridge in the West Midlands which destroyed 19 homes and spread across more than 500 acres on the hottest day of the year so far.

West Midlands Fire Service said crews had been summoned to “hundreds and hundreds of incidents” across the region as temperatures soared, while dozens of fires continued to smoulder elsewhere across the country.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who visited Stourbridge following the blaze, described Britain as “a tinderbox”, warning there were 37 fires still smouldering at the time around the country.

The pressure has become so severe that troops have been called in to assist. Around 100 personnel from the Queen's Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, supported by 22 Engineer Regiment, were deployed to South Wales to support rescue and recovery efforts, including with four military water bowsers each capable of carrying 20,000 litres.

A government source told LBC there is no evidence linking the forum posts to the spate of wildfires, but that £97 million was being invested in what has been described as the biggest upgrade to national resilience capabilities in nearly 20 years.

That package includes specialist equipment, dedicated off-road vehicles, enhanced incident-management capability and additional wildfire training for firefighters, as well as a new specialist wildfire pilot involving dedicated teams able to respond rapidly to incidents across England.

Ministers also plan to convene a summit with fire and rescue services at the end of the summer to assess whether they have the resources required for future wildfire seasons.

Against that backdrop, the extremist material uncovered by LBC explicitly presents wildfire as a means of tying up exactly those resources.

One user on the discussion board argues that deliberately starting a forest fire could force the mobilisation of firefighters, police and investigators, lead to people being evacuated from their homes and inflict substantial economic damage.

They describe the objective as exhausting authorities over a prolonged period and effectively exploiting nature against the group's enemies.

Other users openly debate different potential targets. One suggests setting fire to homes because of the greater possibility of killing people before proposing a court as another potential target because police and members of the public would be inside.

Mr Ayad warned that the objective may extend beyond simply stretching emergency services.

He said: “I believe the strategy is not to just exhaust the ability of law enforcement or first responders to respond to a crisis, but to also spur on more complex attacks, where arson is only one part of the attack.”

Other discussions visible on the forum include pages translated as “Arson Forensics/Fire Investigation”, “Monitoring and Ways to Break It”, “Covert - Fool the Enemies of Allah” and “Danger Tree - Fool the Enemies of Allah”.

The wildfire guide repeatedly instructs potential attackers to consider how investigators might later identify them, discussing surveillance, electronic devices and physical traces which could potentially link somebody to the scene.

Its author also urges supporters to conceal any indication that a blaze was started by an Islamic State supporter, or even evidence that it was deliberately started by a person at all.

Mr Ayad said material posted on supporter-run forums should not be dismissed simply because it has not come directly from an official Islamic State publication.

“These threats should be taken seriously,” he told LBC. “This is a global terrorist group with a history of inspiring supporters globally to conduct attacks.”

He said the question was ultimately whether individual supporters would be able to translate the propaganda into a successful attack, adding that extremist forums are closely watched by researchers, police and intelligence agencies.

But he warned: “These posts could inspire supporters in different locations to find readily available materials to conduct low-threshold attacks, such as arson, so they should be taken seriously.”

Islamic State propaganda has also proved remarkably difficult to eradicate from the internet, as LBC has reported previously.

Mr Ayad said the relationship between mainstream social networks and smaller standalone extremist websites remained fluid, with material moving between the two rather than disappearing.

“We are not seeing a decrease in readily available terrorist material,” he said.

Research by ISD in February found higher levels of engagement with Islamic State terrorist content on mainstream platforms including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Mr Ayad said the difference with fringe forums was the nature of the content being shared.

“Where this differs is around instructional material and direct, specific calls for violence which are found easily on fringe or standalone platforms such as the one you are referencing,” he said.

Although the forum uncovered by LBC carries Islamic State material and contains users openly expressing support for the terrorist organisation, LBC has not established that the website itself is operated or controlled directly by Islamic State.

There is also currently no evidence connecting the material seen by LBC to any of the wildfires burning in Britain.

Mr Ayad said ISD's monitoring had so far found nothing specifically calling on supporters to exploit the current UK fires.

But he warned that exceptionally dry conditions could present an obvious opportunity to somebody already radicalised.

“It only takes one inspired supporter to conduct an attack, and that's what these calls are banking on,” he said.

“There is always a possibility that a radicalised supporter on one of these forums decides that it's a prime opportunity, but to date, we have not seen anything in our monitoring specific to the UK fires.”

He added: “The idea that a supporter in the UK sees this as an opportunity to conduct a low-threshold, high-yield attack of this kind is always there.”

The Government's emergency alert warned that “even a small flame can rapidly develop into a major wildfire placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk”, while a temporary ban on disposable barbecues has been introduced across England, Wales and Scotland.

Members of the public who discover suspected terrorist material online can report it anonymously through the Government's terrorism reporting service.

For fire crews already working around the clock, the material uncovered by LBC raises the prospect of extremists deliberately attempting to exploit conditions which ministers and emergency services are desperately trying to prevent members of the public from accidentally making worse.

An Ofcom spokesperson told LBC: “Under the Online Safety Act, providers of discussion forums must take appropriate steps to protect people in the UK from illegal content or activity, and we’ve shown we’ll take action if evidence suggests providers are falling short.

“However, if the provider of a site is potentially a terrorist organisation, a law enforcement response is more appropriate than a regulatory one, due to potential operational security reasons.”