PORTABLE barbecues should be withdrawn from sale to cut the risk of wildfires in our countryside, says Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger.

He says the barbecues, usually sold for a few pounds, currently pose an unacceptable fire risk and he wants retailers to remove them from the shelves.

With the authorities only days away from declaring official drought conditions in many areas, Mr Liddell-Grainger says the barbecues cannot be considered safe to use anywhere in the countryside - or even in gardens.

“We saw what happened in Essex during the heatwave when a fire in a compost heap eventually spread to properties, with devastating results,” he said.

“It’s not difficult to imagine an overturned or unsupervised garden barbecue leading to a similar outcome.

“But my greatest fear is that the careless use of a barbecue at some countryside beauty spot could lead to an environmental disaster.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger’s constituency includes the Quantock Hills area of outstanding natural beauty and most of Exmoor national park, both heavily-frequented by tourists.

“Given the parched conditions in both areas it’s remarkable we have had no major fires so far this summer - and my concern is that we keep it that way,” he said.

“It has to be remembered that fire service response times to remote beauty spots are necessarily longer than in urban areas.

"A fire crew may take 15 or 20 minutes to reach a location in the middle of Exmoor - more than enough time for a minor fire to have developed into a major one threatening large tracts of moorland and the special wildlife they contain.

“One way we can reduce that kind of risk is by removing one of the potential causes.

"Even in these difficult times I would hope that retailers would feel it was worth sacrificing a couple of pounds of profit for the sake of keeping some of our finest landscapes better protected from fire.”