Fakenham fire: Farmer says heatwave blazes should be a 'wake-up call'

Jack Ashworth said the fire on the farm was only controlled by farmers putting in firebreaks

A famer who lost 750 tonnes of grain in the heatwave said wildfires were "a wake-up call" to climate change.

Jack Ashworth saw 250 acres go up in flames the farm at Stibbard, near Fakenham, Norfolk, on 19 July.

The record temperatures last week were "almost impossible" without human-induced climate change, leading scientists have concluded.

Mr Ashworth, 35, said when he saw the fires he had "a feeling the front line of climate change had really come".

The UK recorded temperatures above 40C (104F) for the first time on 19 July.

Without human-caused climate change these would have been 2C (3.6F) to 4C (7.2F) cooler, experts said.

Jack Ashworth said the grain was days away from harvesting

On 19 July Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service, along with 14 other fire brigades, declared a major incident because of the number of fires they were called to.

Mr Ashworth said the fires on the farm "felt a bit like the apocalypse to be honest".

Although he said he will "never know quite how" the fire started, he believes it was from a cigarette or bottle thrown from a car.

He described the fire as a "massive ecological disaster [with] biodiversity loss that will take years to come back".

• 'If the rain doesn't come we're really in trouble'

• Landlord 'proud' of community after major fire

• Water company rules out hosepipe ban in the East

The fire was stopped from spreading to nearby houses by neighbouring farmers using tractors with cultivators putting firebreaks into the field, which Mr Ashworth said he will now consider retaining permanently.

Jack Ashworth believes wildlife which lives at ponds on the farm would have been lost in the fire

Mr Ashworth said: "There's wildfires raging [not just] across Europe but now even in our green and pleasant land.

"Its truly shocking and it has to be a wake up call. As a society, as a species, we have to get a grip on the climate crisis, we just have to, we don't have a choice."

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C (1.9F) since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.