The government has issued a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues as they pose a “significant risk to the public” due to the heatwave conditions, according to advice published online.

The single-use grills “have been the cause of a number of serious wildfires across the country over the summer months”, advice published online by the government said.

It added: “Disposable barbecues cannot be considered a safe product in the context of the ongoing weather and environmental conditions and must not be made available for sale either in store or online at the current time.”

The UK is facing increasingly extreme conditions such as heatwaves, drought and wildfires fuelled by climate change, which is mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels for power plants, vehicles, heating and industry.

England and Wales have already seen as many wildfires this year as during the whole of 2025.

Some of the wildfires burning across the country will have been started by disposable barbecues, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said.

It comes after he announced a temporary ban had come into force.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: “All retailers will be receiving guidance today, asking them to withdraw them from sale.

“We’ve got 37 fires across England and Wales right now, four of them are major incidents.

“I can’t on this call today say to you that all of them are down to disposable barbecues, they’re not, and I wouldn’t, wouldn’t claim that.

“But it’s probable that some of them have been caused in that in that way.”

Speaking widely on the wildfires, Andy Burnham urged the public to take “the greatest of care” and “don’t light anything in an outdoor space right now”.

The prime minister said: “I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, I dealt with wildfires in Greater Manchester, but nothing on this scale. I’ve never seen scenes like this in Britain, where you just see a whole house gutted, smouldering.

“And I met one of the families whose house had gone up in that in that way, so you can imagine how distressing that is for for them, and you feel for them and their kids, and not to go elsewhere.

“You know, it’s just unbelievably devastating for people in this in this position. So that’s why I’m here. I just wanted to show that, you know, we’re on the ground.

“We understand how difficult this is for everybody, and we will put in place the support to help people get back to where they should be as soon as possible.”

The announcement comes days after prime minister Andy Burnham said he was urging "all retailers big and small" to adhere to voluntary guidance to suspend sales of disposable barbecues during extreme heat.

It followed a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee, convened to coordinate the response to the prolonged spell of hot and dry weather.

Many local authorities and figures have long called for a ban on disposable barbecues due to the severe risk of causing wildfires in the summer.

Following the Wareham Forest fire, sparked by a single-use grill in 2020, Dorset Council has campaigned for people not to have BBQs and campfires in areas at high risk of fire.

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