Hero farmer steps in to stop massive wildfire spreading
Blaze in barley field threatened nearby homes
A farmer has been hailed a hero for bravely ploughing crops just metres away from a wildfire in a bid to stop it from spreading to homes.
The blaze engulfed almost 20 acres of land on Lenham Heath, between Maidstone and Ashford, on Saturday afternoon.
Forty firefighters tackled the flames for more than 90 minutes, while escorting people close by to safety.
Landowner Andy Barr says his neighbour Bill Alexander “rapidly stepped in” by using his tractor to cut the crops when the wind started to push the fire towards nearby properties.
Taking to Twitter, Mr Barr said: “Spring barley was up in flames and the wind turned towards my brother’s house.
“Luckily Bill Alexander and local firm TC Agri Ltd saved the day.
“It looked like I was going to lose a lot more until those I’ve mentioned rapidly stepped in.
“Also many, many thanks to Kent Fire and Rescue who were brilliant and are facing far too many of these at the moment.”
Mr Barr said his fellow farmer had “performed heroics in my field”.
The pair appeared on ITV’s This Morning to talk about the incident.
Mr Barr said: “I was actually working in a barn in the middle of the afternoon and I got a call from another one of my neighbours saying ‘what is all that smoke?’.”
“I thought ‘what smoke?’, and I went outside and looked down over the farm and there was huge billows of it coming up from a field nearly a mile away and thought ‘oh my god’.
“I quickly phoned the fire brigade and guided them in, then on the way down to the fire, Bill phoned me up and said ‘I can see what is happening, is there anything you want me to do?’”
“I knew I had to move some cattle out the way and open lots of gates, so I said ‘you know what, Bill, it would be really handy if we could have a cultivator down here’.
“Without hesitation, he said ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can’.”
He added: “It is absolutely terrifying how quickly it can all happen.”
Speaking to the Kent Messenger after the incident, Mr Barr said: “It was quite a big chunk – around 20 hectares [50 acres] of land was destroyed.
“There might be one hectare that we can salvage from that, but it will be pretty damaged anyway.
“It was meant to be going for malting barley, to go into brewing for beer. The prices for it are worth more this year than it has been for many years, due to other problems in the world.
“The main thing for me was that it didn’t go anywhere else – it was quite close to my brother’s house, and at one stage the wind changed and his property became engulfed with thick smoke.
“We have had little things similar to this before, but nothing like the standing crop suddenly going up in flames. Not on that scale.”
The farmer says the technique of ploughing the crop for fire prevention is an old method.
“That’s tried and tested, Bill kind of knew what to do straight away,” Mr Barr explained.
“When I was younger we used to burn straw on purpose, to help the planting of the next crop and to get rid of weeds.
“You would plough all round the outside first and once you had turned the soil over, there was nothing to burn.”
The blaze was so large that it was said to be visible to motorists on the M20 between Junctions 8 for Leeds Castle and 9 near Ashford.
It is not known what caused it.
‘At one stage my brother’s property became engulfed with thick smoke’