Archived News

9th August 2015

It feels like a late start for harvest in many areas and we are about two weeks behind due to a few break downs and a day of road closures which all add up at this critical time of year.

However the barley harvest at Hackhurst, Sandy Meadow, Abinger, Silent Pool and Raikes is complete with an average yield whilst the yield of oilseed rape is down.

After delays on Thursday morning, Laurence moved back to fields of Crusoe wheat between West Lane and the church at Wotton. 

During the evening Rees and Christopher were waiting with empty trailers to be called up the field for Laurence to off-load grain from the combine. But before this could happen, they saw what appeared to be bright lights on the combine harvester, but soon realised it was flames they could see.

As they set off up the field to warn Laurence; at the same time a warning light for the hydraulics began showing in the combine cab.

As Laurence looked in the wing mirror he saw flames licking up the side of the vehicle.  He climbed down to assess the situation and realised he had to move the combine out of the crop as fast as he could; and so he returned to the cab.

He managed to drive the combine just far enough out of the crop before the engine died.

As the lads called Surrey Fire and Rescue, Laurence used fire extinguishers around the edge of the crop to prevent the fire spreading into the field.  This swift action contained the burnt area to about 50m square.

Three fire crews took over and were there until gone 1am ensuring the fire was out and that it didn’t spread any further, we are very grateful to them.

If Laurence hadn’t managed to get the combine just away from the crop as he did and keep the fire at bay until the fire crew arrived, the entire field would have quickly been engulfed in flames and with the wind behind it the fire would have whipped down through acres of dry wheat to Wotton church.

We are fully aware that had the combine been any further into the crop he may not have made it out of the field.  Whilst stress levels have reached new heights, we are incredibly grateful that no one was hurt.

Two ‘spare’combine harvesters have arrived since the fire.  The combines are used by farmers whose own vehicles require some sort of maintenance that is likely to halt their harvesting for more than a day or so.

The first arrived from Micheldever and Rees collected a cutter bar from Reading but this machine has a couple of days work before it’s ready to use, so another combine has been driven from Chichester this morning to enable us to recommence our harvest.

That combine was harvesting peas on a farm in Chichester until 9.30pm last night and was driven for three hours up to Manor Farm this morning.