Fellow farmers step in to save family home during field fire

Phil Monkman has lived on his North Yorkshire farm with wife Abi and their two daughters for six years.

He has been farming for "forever and a day" - but had never seen a fire like the one that ripped through their land earlier this month.

It started a few fields away from their family home near Malton while Phil's father and a contractor were operating the combine harvester.

It did not seem very big at first, but they created a firebreak - a gap in vegetation acting as a barrier to slow or stop a fire's progress - and called the fire service.

Within a matter of minutes, smoke was billowing over the house and farm buildings.

"We came back and [the fire] was two fields further over than where I last left it," says Phil, 36.

"I think the speed that it went shocked everyone. I would say running pace at least."

The fire on 9 July marked the peak of the UK's third official heatwave of the summer, with temperatures in Malton hitting about 32C at the time.

Another fire engulfed a tractor and a field in Hovingham nine miles away on the same day, with a fire destroying an entire unit at the nearby Malton and Norton District Hospital the previous day.

When Abi, 38, got home from work, the fire had almost reached the garden fence.

"I just rang Phil in a panic, saying 'the fire is at the house'," she says.

Friends and neighbours helped Abi to remove their horses and dogs from the farm, but she felt "helpless".

"You see fires on telly - you don't actually expect that it's going to happen to you," she adds.

"The reality that it's so close to the house, that you could lose your house and not get your valuables out, it was pretty terrifying."

While fire crews were "absolutely amazing", Abi says they also had to "rely" on their local community to help put out the blaze.

She posted on Facebook appealing for neighbours to bring large volumes of water along with machinery to help create firebreaks.

"Certainly, if it wasn't for farmers, I've no doubt we would have lost our home," she adds.

Farm fires are "particularly challenging for firefighters", according to Nick Allenby, station manager and wildfire tactical advisor at North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service.

He says dry crops, machinery and hot weather combined with the "open and often remote locations where these incidents occur" enable flames to travel quickly.

"We work closely with farmers and landowners throughout North Yorkshire, and their knowledge of the land, access routes and water supplies is often invaluable when tackling these incidents safely and effectively," he says.

"We would encourage anyone carrying out harvesting activities to take simple preventative measures, including checking and cleaning machinery regularly, carrying fire extinguishers on agricultural equipment, having a water bowser available where possible and ensuring operators know how to quickly contact the emergency services."

Following the fire, both Abi and Phil say they have been left feeling "nervous" for the coming weeks and further heatwaves.

"It takes one tiny bit of spark and that's it, everything's up," Abi says. "If you can't get it stopped, it's game over really."

Phil says harvesting is still "a job that needs to be done", adding: "You're always checking your wing mirrors and thinking, 'is that the smell of smoke or not?'"

While the couple are still counting the cost of the damage and sorting their insurance claim, he says they have been "very, very lucky".

"In the great proportion of things, we were near the end of finishing [harvesting] the field so we didn't lose a big proportion of corn," he says.

"It was mainly straw, and we do sell straw to local livestock farmers so it's going to make them short."

In nearby York, damage costing approximately £30,000 was done to two fields owned by Russell Wagstaff by a fire believed to have been started deliberately.

"It'll be a big impact," the 45-year-old says.

"Farming is a stressful job anyway, so you don't really need that to add to it at this time - the job is tight at the minute financially."

With gardens backing onto one side of the field, he says it "could have been devastating".

However, the flames were stopped by fellow farmers creating firebreaks.

"We all come together and we all help one another," he adds.

One of those farmers was 19-year-old Cameron Bartram, who was contacted by his friend Jay Loft, 22.

Footage shows his tractor driving just metres away from the flames.

"You could feel the heat through the cab," Cameron says. "When you went past the big bit, you could feel it hit you."

The pair received praise on social media and from emergency services for their quick-thinking actions, with their local MP inviting them to Westminster.

Cameron says he "did not expect anything at all".

"I was just helping a neighbouring farmer," he says. "It's just crackers really. I didn't think I'd be invited down to Parliament like that."

Jay, who works on farms as a pest controller, says their "main priority was keeping it away from houses".

"The fire wouldn't make it over the road, but if it was making its way towards fences and sheds and things, obviously all the elderly residents and people were getting quite worried and didn't know what was going on," he told BBC Radio 4's Farming Today.

Fire is a "constant risk" to UK farms, according to rural insurance provider NFU Mutual.

In 2024, the estimated cost of farm fires reported to the company across the UK was £102m.

In the north-east of England region, including Yorkshire, the estimated cost was £16.4m - a 34% increase on the previous year.

"These fires not only endanger the lives of farmers, farm workers and their families, but can destroy months or years of hard work, with long-lasting consequences," says NFU Mutual rural affairs specialist Hannah Binns.

"Beyond the immediate damage, the emotional toll of a farm fire can be significant, as individuals come to terms with the trauma and the added strain on an already demanding job."

David Skaith, York and North Yorkshire's elected Labour mayor, says the county's fire service is "adapting in terms of their skills, their training, the equipment that they have".

Last summer, a wildfire raged on Langdale Moor in the North York Moors, with farmers praised for their efforts to fight the flames.

"[Firefighters] are in that partnership with landowners and those farmers, who were so key to the Langdale fire last year," the mayor says.

"It's making sure that we're working with people like the landowners to make sure our region is as safe as possible and as resilient as possible to these wildfires."

Additional reporting by Georgey Spanswick.

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