As environmental groups finally admit fuel load matters, it is time for an audit on the land that wasn't managed

Something has shifted this summer, and it should not be allowed to pass quietly. For the best part of a decade, the organisations holding the largest share of Britain's upland conservation estate told the country that wildfire was a problem of weather, arsonists and disposable barbecues. Land management, they said, had nothing to do with it. Those who argued otherwise were dismissed as…