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Farmer loses thousands-of-pounds of crops after late-night fire

A fire at a Longside farm could cost a farmer thousands
A fire at a Longside farm could cost a farmer thousands

A north-east farmer has lost thousands of pounds worth of crops after a ferocious blaze broke out at his farm.

Firefighters from Maud and Peterhead battled on Wednesday night to save a wheat crop after grain caught fire at Parkhill Farm, Longside.

Despite the crews best efforts to save farmer Leslie Alexander’s crops going up in smoke, around £3,000 of damage was caused.

Last night, a spokesman for the fire service said that crews stayed at the scene until the early hours of yesterday morning to make sure the fire was out.

“Three appliances attended, two from Peterhead and one from Maud, around 9.15pm,” he said.

“It was grain that was on fire within a farm building. We assisted the farmer using machinery to remove the grain and dampen it down – to spread the fire load.

“A main jet and two hose reel jets were used to extinguish it.”

The blaze was out by about 10.20pm, with the last appliance leaving the site at 1.40am.

Mr Alexander, who has owned the site since 1990 and has been in the trade since 1985, said none of the smoke and fire damaged grain could be used.

He added: “We don’t know how the fire started. It was in the process of being dried, so it could have been a spark from somewhere. We’re not sure – we’ve never had a fire before.

“You can’t save the grain when it’s been smoke damaged, but it was pretty well burned. It was well alight by the time we knew about it – none of it was salvageable.”

He said only one batch of grain had been drying at the time of the fire.

“Hopefully this won’t affect me too much,” Mr Alexander added.

“The whole agricultural scene isn’t very good just now, but there’s an assessor coming up to get the value for the insurance.

“I reckon there was about 25 tons of wheat grain, but the market price isn’t very good – about £110 per ton.”