An emergency group of scientists was being called in by the government last night to advise on containing the H5N1 outbreak.

Vets and experts on viruses and disease were analysing information, modelling scenarios and advising the government's crisis management committee Cobra, which reviewed bird flu contingency plans yesterday. Below this group other experts, including the Met Office, were collecting data and advice. Meanwhile Defra was preparing to recruit outside contractors and private vets to check farms and to collect testing samples.

Arrangements are in place to call in vets from Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and EU member states if necessary. Retired experts and agricultural and veterinary students may also be recruited if the virus is found on farms or if the situation deteriorates in the wild bird population. In a last resort armed forces may be called in if rapid culling becomes necessary.

The government will not sanction the burning of carcasses on huge pyres, however, because ministers do not want a repeat of the scenes that accompanied the foot and mouth outbreak.

There has been no decision on whether farmers will be compensated, but if they are, it will only be for healthy birds culled to contain the disease. The Scottish executive and its chief vet, Charles Milne, handled the crisis at Cellardyke until the point of confirmation of the case, but officials working for the UK's chief vet, Debby Reynolds, were preparing the next moves now that contingency plans have been activated and control has shifted to London.

Britain is the 13th EU country to have reported avian flu, which has mostly been found in wild birds rather than poultry.

Officials ruled out calling in free range birds across Britain at this stage, regarding such action as "disproportionate". But farmers in the Montrose basin, an area well beyond the six mile (10km) surveillance zone, have been told to do so.

Officials are "urgently considering" whether extra regional measures are now needed. They are confident that 99% of keepers of poultry in Britain have now registered with the authorities to enable swift contact. More than 22,350 farms and other holdings are registered. They house mostly chickens, ducks, turkey and geese or game birds such as partridges, quail and pheasants. The government has been criticised for not insisting all hobby owners, with fewer than 50 birds are there too, but the government insists that it is outbreaks on the big farms that pose the biggest threat to animal and public health.

Organisations such as the Soil Association, which represents organic farmers, say they have been preparing members since autumn in case they have to shut in their birds or provide protective netting from wild birds. The association's director, Patrick Holden, said: "We have been reassured by verbal statements from senior officials that any such strategy will avoid mass culling and medieval funeral pyres of foot and mouth."

Peter Kendall of the National Farmers' Union said: "All the contingency plans that we have for avian influenza have been drawn up on the basis that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain would reach the UK sooner or later. We are well prepared."