Recent London emergencies

What happened?

By end of July 2026, London faced three official heatwaves with record-breaking temperatures in May and June. Our partner UKHSA has issued four Yellow, three Amber and one Red Heat Health Alert, all shared on the UKHSA Heat Health dashboard. Two of these heatwaves were accompanied by wildfire warnings, issued by the Natural Hazards Partnership (NHP). The Environment Agency declared a Prolonged Dry Status in late July, quickly followed by an upgrade to Drought by 1^st of August.   

• Our partner, Met Office, also a member of the NHP, summarised the exceptional climate conditions of Summer 2026 in mid-July in a recent article, including:

“Spring 2026 was the warmest on record for England and Wales and the UK’s third warmest overall. June, the first month of meteorological summer, followed suit, becoming England’s warmest June on record and the second warmest for both the UK and Wales in records dating back to 1884.”

• Our partner British Red Cross (BRC) posted an article in July about the severe heat and “exceptional wildfire risk”, with links to guidance and tools for heat and wildfires. It explains that the UK has already faced 2,700 excess deaths from heat in May and June.
• Our partner LFB posted about the abundance of grass fire incidents across London and shared important guidance

LCEP Activation

• During the heat health alerts, LCEP used the LCEP Whatsapp Community* to post heat health guidance, real-time messages from official London Resilience partners, facts about the heat’s effects to our communities, communications templates, reminders about the Cool Spaces programme and how to find one, and other partner tools. We cross-posted messaging on our co-chair London Plus’ LinkedIn page.
• For the Red-level extreme heat we posted a warning banner on our website, while partners were very active in our LCEP chat group* in Whatsapp sharing information and communications templates with one another. Our partner London Boroughs Faiths Network (LBFN) collected all of the communication examples and posted them on their web page, “Extreme Heat Resources.”  We joined daily Strategic Coordination Group meetings with senior leads of London Resilience partners. After the heatwave concluded, we led an After-Action Review with partners to collect lessons learnt for the next extreme heat wave. We will post these.
• For the wildfire warnings, we shared our partner LFB’s wildfire mitigation and response guidance and more targeted guidance as the grass fires multiplied.
• When Drought coincided with an Amber heat health alert and Severe Wildfire Risk alert, we attended meetings with other London Resilience partners to discuss priorities and concerns, and we met with their Comms partners about priority messaging. We discussed these with partners in Whatsapp before and after the meetings to ensure two-way communication between the VCFS and the Resilience sector.

Throughout the remainder of the summer, we will continue to monitor the alerts, share guidance messages with partners in Whatsapp and LinkedIn, and work with partners to improve preparedness and response by applying lessons learned. We will update this page with new information intermittently.

*To join LCEP’s Whatsapp Community for one-way announcements, or to join the LCEP chat group, first join the LCEP partnership

Resources

Due to the many resources available for heat health and wildfires. Some primary locations where LCEP typically guides partners are:  

• LCEP’s Resource Hub, in the Hot Weather section
• VCS Emergencies Partnership’s Summer Preparedness page
• Subscribe to UKHSA’s and Met Office’s real-time Heat Health Alerts
• UKHSA Heat Health Alerts live dashboard
• Signpost your local Cool Spaces for vulnerable neighbours
• BRC’s heat advice, in different languages
• UKHSA Hot Weather Toolkit — heat health community comms
• LFB wildfire mitigation and response guidance – for messaging to your communities

• Met Office long range forecast – for emergency planning
• Mayor of London’s Heat Ready campaign – learn about London’s heat-ready efforts and comment
• Natural England’s Fire Severity Index map to find grass fire risk in your area – for emergency planning and alerting communities
• UKHSA’s wildfire health risks blog – understand health risks with poor air quality
• Environment Agency’s water situation reports
• UKHSA Water Safety messaging
• Water Efficiency Campaign “Let’s Save Water” – water-saving tips for everyday life
• #FloatToLive campaign — “How to deal with cold water shock” YouTube short video
• City Corporation’s #LoveLondonsParks campaign with other open spaces providers — messages on wildfire and cold water shock across London’s parks

On Wednesday 29th April 2026, Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north London. This was declared a terrorist incident. 

We are horrified by yet another violent attack on London’s streets and our thoughts and prayers go out to all have been impacted. 

Along with our partners at London Boroughs Faith Network we are committed to actively combatting the hostile environments that enable and incite violence and hatred on our streets, and we continue to work across sectors to build strategies and practical actions to change the polarisation and volatility on our streets and neighbourhoods.

LCEP is monitoring the communication to ensure all support is needed. Let us know if you have concerns or more information to share.

Other links:

• LCEP resource hub – mental health support in London 

• BBC live report 
• Victim support

On Monday 23rd March 2026, four ambulances belonging to Jewish volunteer emergency service Hatzola were deliberately set on fire outside a synagogue in north London. 

Our thoughts go out to the Jewish community who are undoubtedly feeling vulnerable after another antisemitic attack. 

Whilst there were no injuries, directly targeting the Jewish volunteer group Hatzola is deeply shocking. This group gives pre-hospital emergency medical response and transportation at no cost, to the North London community. 

Their important work has undoubtedly been affected by this attack, so please show your support for this organisation and find out about them here. 

Links:

• LCEP resource hub – mental health support in London
• London Fire Brigade statement

What’s happened: 

Since January 2026 there has been a rise in measles cases nationally. The latest data from UKHSA confirms that London accounted for majority of cases, mostly driven by an outbreak in North London.

Measles spreads very easily and can be serious. The outbreak is mostly affecting unvaccinated children under 10 in schools and nurseries. UKHSA data (September 2025) suggests MMR vaccination coverage in London is low, with only 69% of children are recorded as having had the required two doses by the age of 5. Local and national partners continue to emphasise the importance of the MMRV vaccine to protect against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox).

Resources:

• What is measles and why it is important we’re up to date with our vaccines from GOV UK here.
• North London ICB have two Measles Information Workshops in March, with another planned for April, sign up here.
• Haringey Council support page and previous research from Haringey. 
• How the MMRV protects against 4 potentially serious illnesses, including measles and chickenpox here.
• Government guide on the MRR. See below for Albanian and Turkish translated guides.