First wildfire
Who
Cardiff University
What
first first
Where
United Kingdom (Welsh Borderland)

The earliest wildfire smouldered approximately 419 million years ago during the Silurian period, when oxygen levels may have been higher than today's. A team of scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences (UK) found evidence of a low-intensity burn, probably started by a lightning strike, while studying three-dimensional charred fossils of small plants found in rocks near Ludlow, in the Welsh Borderland, UK, in April 2004.