Farmers praised as heroes for work to stop Stourbridge fire

Farmers have been called heroes for creating firebreaks to save more houses from destruction as flames swept across the West Midlands last week.

A group of more than a dozen farmers and residents used tractors to dig furrows in Stourbridge, helping to contain the huge fire there on Thursday.

"The size of it and the speed it accelerated was just incredible," one farmer, Daniel Pardoe, said. "But [I was] pleased that we could manage to get it under control and nobody was hurt."

An online fundraising campaign set up to support nine local farmers who worked to slow the fire's path has so far raised more than £4,000.

Nineteen houses were destroyed and more than a dozen others damaged after the blaze tore through dry grass as the UK recorded its hottest day of the year on 13 August.

West Midlands Fire Service said more than 500 acres of land was affected by the fire, which was one of the most significant incidents it had ever experienced, with specialist investigations teams continuing to look into its cause.

Nicky Clement, a Hagley resident, who set up the GoFundMe campaign, said the farmers took it upon themselves to travel from across the region without being asked to help, while "putting themselves in the line of fire".

She wrote how the farmers were "heroes" and now needed help to rebuild fencing destroyed by flame, as well as cover the cost of emergency feed and water for their animals during heatwave conditions.

"Anyone who chooses to put themselves into the extremes of nature like this is a hero in my eyes," she said.

"After a summer of drought, with harvests and yields already catastrophically low, the farmers of these fields now have to start planting, fencing and re-establishing the lost ecosystems while continuing to lose income as police and fire investigate."

Pardoe described how he arrived at the scene at about 14:00 BST on Thursday and used a self-propelled sprayer on the flames, alongside other farmers with cultivators.

Local residents also tried to halt the blaze by using hosepipes, he said.

"It was stressful and hot," the farmer explained. "We were working to a plan and making sure everyone was doing something sensible. Just trying to prevent it spreading... into Hagley and the hamlet of Iverley."

He added: "It's been a huge community effort, not just in the fire itself but ever since. It's amazing what everyone's done together."

Pardoe said if the farmers had not helped, he believed the blaze would have spread to even more houses.

He said the group had also called firefighters to let them know what they were doing.

"[Without us], the fire brigade would have been fighting even more fires on more fronts with whatever resources they could pull in," he said.

"They were doing everything they could and they were concentrating on the northern side of the fire where residential areas were."

The Bishop of Dudley is also among those to have thanks the farmers for their actions.

Martin Gorick, one of the residents evacuated from their homes, said in a post on Facebook: "I want to say a big thank you to our brave farmers - who in the face of the fire ploughed this land by Worcester Lane to create firebreaks. They saved many other houses from destruction."

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