Ecologist and author Pádraic Fogarty said Ireland’s laws around starting fires are stuck where they were "30 years ago".
Mr Fogarty said the "legislative framework, the fines that people place, the risk of prosecution for fires" has not progressed since then.
"The deterrent isn't there. In the very unlikely event that anybody gets caught and prosecuted for something like this, the fines might range to the hundreds of euro, which really is not a deterrent," he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Fogarty said controlled burning is a "bugbear" of his "because it is illegal to set fire to the land during the bird nesting season, which is from the 1 March to the end of August".
Yesterday, a wildfire on Slievenamon in Co Tipperary had "reduced significantly", according to Tipperary County Council. However, firefighters were continuing to tackle a number of isolated hotspots.
"But outside [of this time], it's not. And we get very mixed messages, particularly from the farming community, about whether fire is acceptable or even beneficial.
"Now, fire should be unacceptable on land. We should not be burning land, full stop.
"We saw maybe two years ago where there were major fires in February, which was very unusual to have such a dry period so early in the year. So, fires are damaging even when they are so-called controlled fires, which in my view don't exist."
He said fires in Ireland happen on the hills, adding that our peatland habitats are our "climate champions".
However, their "extremely degraded state "means they dry out very quickly and are very fire vulnerable".
Ireland's native forests are 'not flammable'
He said it is important to "keep as much water on the hills as possible".
"We need to get our forests back into our hills," said Mr Fogarty.
The ecologist said Ireland’s native forests are "not flammable".
"We've seen that even in Killarney National Park recently where the flames just don't go into areas where we have intact natural forests.
"Unfortunately we've cleared out nearly all of our native forests from the hills but we could reverse that.
"We also have a forestry model based on monocultures, of one particular type of conifer tree and that exacerbates the fire problem," he said.
Mr Fogarty said in France and Spain these "vast monocultures" are "fuelling the flames".
"We need to be transitioning to different types of commercial forestry," he said.
He said more prolonged dry spells will mean more, and worse, fires.
"It's meeting now a much worsening climate situation where we get more and more prolonged dry spells so that we're going to see more and more of these fires and worse fires unless we start addressing our land use issues," he said.
Mr Fogarty said that we have been dealing with fires in Ireland on this level for maybe 15 to 20 years.
Wildfires have 'massive effect' on bees
The founder of a biodiversity project has said wildfires in Ireland have had a "massive effect" on bees and flying insects due to a lack of pollen and water.
Brian Murray, who set up the Micro Wild biodiversity project, said the reality is that during a heat event, bees tend to move back to the nest or hive.
He said there is an optimal temperature range of 14C to 20C that honeybees, the bumblebees and solitary bees work between.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Murray, who is an entomologist and studies insects and their environment said: "If it goes outside of this, they try and avoid those temperatures for various different reasons because the nectar isn’t available, because the pollen isn’t available and because water isn’t available for them to drink."
Mr Murray said the wildfires have a massive effect on biodiversity and different species.
He said bees are looking to feed the larvae back at the nest, which is why they collect pollen.
"But during a heat event, there isn’t much pollen being created by the plants and also the nectar, there is no water in the root system, the nectar isn’t being produced by the plant and also there is no water for them to hydrate either," he said.
Mr Murray said a lot of them ultimately die off as a result.
On how long a bee can last in these conditions, Mr Murray said it depends on what reserves they have back in their nests.
They need to hydrate and as they cannot store water back at their nest, they will sit out for a couple of weeks. "After that they will have to go out to search for water, to search for pollen, to search for nectar," he said.
Mr Murray said people can help by leaving a tray underneath a plant pot, to fill it with stones and water so that bees, wasps and hover flies can land on the stones and drink water.
He added that every flying insect will be impacted with the lack of water at the top of the soil.
