I took a bus to a local garden center soon and on the way....there are fields....it's sort of in the middle of nowhere. a town called burton latimer. part of one of the fields was on fire! and there were loads of fire brigades there. i spent a good hour there and then on the way back it had spread to the whole field....and it was connected to loads of fields. it didn't looked like an arsen attack as it's literally miles from any civilization and crops looked like they had been harvested.
but it was an incredibly hot day today...it was supposed to rain but i was sweating buckets!
They used to harvest fields then burn off the straw, but it's been a good few years since I saw anyone doing it.
Robert, you've made me feel so old! ;) When did farmers give up burning post harvest then?
I don't know, but it's been a very long time (long before I came to Birmingham, I'm sure) since I saw those palls of smoke drifting across the countryside.
Stubble burning has been banned for a good few years now, about 15 I think.
We used to practise it on the farm as a very effective way of removing stubble prior to cultivation, the resultant ash also had a value.
It was great fun to do but you had to be very very careful. Chose a dry day with little wind. Plough a margin/fire break around the perimeter of the field to prevent the hedges being caught. Have a water bowser on hand incase the fire jumped the margin and have plenty of hands ready to help if needed.
If you get it right you can burn a 20 acre field in a matter of minutes and have no problems at all, get it wrong and I have seen/heard of hedges, barns, tractors, pick up trucks, etc all going up in smoke.
The worst accident we had was on a very hot day burning barley stubble in a field where there are 4 electricity poles that bring the 3 phase supply onto the farm from the grid. These poles are soaked in tar/creosote to prolong their life. Normally we did not plough around them to form a fire break but on that day we should have as the tar was weeping out of the poles due to the heat.
We ended up with 4 giant match sticks blazing away, trying to put them out proved hard with limited water so we had to call the fire brigade whoi laughed their socks off when they arrived.
The electricity company were none too pleased though!
Oops!
Jerry
it's called sweeling round here (west yorks/lancs border) and still done sometimes I am sure
Quote from: calendula on September 07, 2006, 14:15:10
it's called sweeling round here (west yorks/lancs border) and still done sometimes I am sure
If they do they are facing heft fines and the chance of loosing their stewardship payments. With the all the satellites pointed at the UK now to monitor farmers activity to ensure compliance with the rules they are not likely to get away with it to be honest.
Jerry
As teenagers on the edge of the moors we always engaged in a bit of unofficial swealing!
;D
I'll never forget seeing the results of unofficial swaling in 1976!