AROUND five hectares of farmland and 60 hay bales have been destroyed following a large fire in Throop.
Dozens of firefighters from various stations rushed to a cornfield just off Holdenhurst Village Road shortly after 3.45pm on Thursday (July 28) after reports that a large section of land was “well alight”.
Crews from Springbourne, Hamworthy and two from Poole attended along with a water carrier from Poole to the tackle the blaze which caused a huge amount of smoke and embers to fill the air amid windy conditions.
Residents watched on as firefighters, and even the land’s farmer, doused the flames with water from several vehicles and handheld hose reel jets.
As you can see there are several hotspots of flames which are still burning on the field. The field owner is apparently in this tractor breaking up the charred hay bales. @Bournemouthecho pic.twitter.com/EFsIzMNYRV
— Andrew Goldman (@AndrewDailyEcho) July 28, 2022
One man says he saw just two hay bales on fire at first, before the wind took hold and spread the flames across the field “in seconds”.
At one point, the fire was perilously close to a property immediately opposite the field in Holdenhurst Village Road. The flames reached the bordering shrubbery and also caused substantial burn damage to a wooden BT utility pole.
- AS IT HAPPENED: Field fire in Throop
Thankfully, emergency personnel were able to stop the fire spreading any further towards the property.
Once the largest flames were extinguished and hotspots contained, incident commander Chris Mitchell of Springbourne Fire Station told the Echo the cause was accidental. He said: “[The farmer was] using the combine harvester and went over a splint which caused a spark and it just took off. It’s so dry everywhere.
“Using hose reel jets and two main lines, and a lot of hard work, we surrounded the fire and did the best we could.
“Due to a lot of incidents in the area we were very low on resources so had to try to conserve water.
“Everyone worked really hard. We worked quickly to stop it spreading across the road to the property and making sure our crews kept as safe as possible – and to whoever gave us some cold drinks we thank you for that.”
At around 5.40pm, crews began to stand down and handed the reigns back to the farmer.
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