Wildfires raged in Britain this summer. To rate the danger, the U.K. is looking to Canada | CBC News

are really extraordinary, and particularly in the southeast of England," Elliott said.

to adapt a national wildfire danger rating system based on the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System.

doesn't officially have a fire danger rating system as such," Elliott said.

But it was in 1968 that Canada first established its national Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System.

Mike Wotton, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service and a Forestry professor at the University of Toronto, is one of the Canadians helping U.K.

researchers modify the model for their country.

"Things like the dryness of forest fuels, how fast fires are going to spread, what the intensity or the flame size that one might expect on any fire that started," Wotton said.

isn't the first country to study the Canadian model to create its own early warning system, and Wotton said it's well known globally. .

The U.K.'s work to specialize its fire danger system may also benefit Canadian researchers — in particular some work being done by Elliott in the heathlands where the terrain and vegetation are similar to shrublands in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Fire management agencies out there are challenged with predicting fire," Wotton said.

For Elliott, who wears both the hat of a researcher and a fire responder, finalizing a national system can't come soon enough

"These are landscapes I've lived in all my life growing up and absolutely love, and to see them being destroyed by fire is just heartbreaking," Elliott said