A HEREFORDSHIRE farmer has spoken out after a terrifying blaze on his farm.

Tragedy was narrowly averted when a farm worker spotted smoke and flames pouring from the back of a combine harvester he was working alongside on the farm near Ross-on-Wye.

Luckily, farm worker Jamie Barber was able to alert the combine driver as the harvester went up in flames.

Mr Barber was driving the grain trailer alongside the CLAAS 760 combine being operated by Roger Mince when he saw it was on fire. His warning allowed Mr Mince to drive the combine off the wheat field he had been harvesting before leaping for safety.

ALSO READ:

No one was hurt in the incident, in August 2023, but the £250,000 combine was destroyed in the fire. The heat was so intense the machine collapsed in the middle. The precise cause remains a mystery, although one theory is that a seized bearing overheated.

The driver prevented the wheat crop being engulfed by the fire, driving onto a piece of grassland nearby. The fire brigade was called and were on the scene in minutes to extinguish the blaze, but the combine was a write-off.

Overhead power lines and poles close to the site of the fire had to be checked by the electricity company.

Farmer Nigel Roper, who farms around 2,500 acres of arable crops near Ross, said it was the first combine harvester fire he has experienced in more than 60 years in agriculture.

Firefighters battling the combine harvester blaze near Ross-on-WyeFirefighters battling the combine harvester blaze near Ross-on-Wye (Image: NFU Mutual)

“It’s not something I want to experience again,” he said. “It shook us all up, particularly the chap who was on the combine.”

“We had cleaned out the combine that morning. We had only been working for about an hour when it happened, so it was full of fuel when it went up. We have a fire extinguisher on the combine, but there was no time to use it.

“It happened without any real warning. We’re just grateful no one was hurt.”

He said the weather had not been hot and the summer generally had been a wet one.

Mr Roper said he was only about a quarter of the way through harvest when the combine was destroyed and needed a replacement quickly. He said his local dealer was able to provide one the following morning and a neighbour who had finished harvesting loaned a combine too.

What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

He has praised insurers NFU Mutual who quickly assessed the damage and settled the claim in full. Mr Roper has now bought a new CLAAS combine harvester.

NFU Mutual is calling for Government to encourage the uptake of fire suppression systems on agricultural vehicles with financial incentives or subsidies for farmers. The systems work by rapidly detecting the first signs of a fire and releasing a suppressant that quickly extinguishes the blaze.

Nationally, UK farm fires were larger-scale and costlier in nature last year, new figures from NFU Mutual reveal.

There was a 15 per cent fall in the number of fire claims involving growing crops, buildings and farm equipment reported to NFU Mutual in 2023. But the total cost of these fires rocketed 37 per cent to an estimated £110.3m in 2023, compared to £80.4m in 2022.

That rise could be down to larger-scale fires being reported to NFU Mutual last year compared to previous years, as well as rising values of replacement equipment, building materials and labour.

The main causes of farm fire claims in 2023 were electrical faults, lightning strikes and arson attacks.

The cost of agricultural vehicle fires, which are recorded separately by NFU Mutual, remained high at an estimated £37.7m in 2023, driven by a rise in the cost of tractor fire claims to £20.4m.

But lower summer temperatures, on top of industry calls for farmers to install fire suppression systems or similar, brought a welcome fall in the cost of combine harvester fires, from £11.1m in 2022 to an estimated £7.4m in 2023.