West Midlands Farmers Praised as Heroes for Creating Firebreaks During Major Blaze

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."

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, external: "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."