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A Farmer's Story From The Langdale Fire Frontline

This Is The Coast spoke to one of the farmers leading the fight against the moorland blaze near RAF Fylingdales.

We caught up with Mike Shardlow, who's been helping with transport alongside his family:

" I came in on Tuesday morning, I came in and we've been cutting water to a lot of the retained firefighters with four wheel drive engines onto the edge of the moor. We ran the command centre and they were desperate for tankers. We've been running this 24 hours a day, me and the family, and then had another driver, Chris Coates.

"It gives a day off work to come and drive it. So the tankers are carting all the water from various points. Woodsmith Mine, the River Esk, Whitby Harbour up to the fire engines. Like I'm doing now, I'm going straight onto the moor myself and dusting down them. Some hotspots still up there, so all of a sudden, like last night, you'll see a little flame here and there. So we're just dampening them down."

Mike said conditions worsened markedly on Monday.

However, storms in the area brought much needed rain on Wednesday:

 "If we wouldn't have had the rain would've been in a bigger mess than we are now. Yeah. The rain, the retained firefighters are used to this sort of work on the moorland have been wonderful. They've given so much advice and the college earth work lads on a dozer and a digger. Those lads have worked virtually 24 hours a day and put fire brakes in all over.

"If not, it would've gone. I'm standing oh 500 yards from a farmstead. At the edge of the fire, it would've taken that farm out if it weren't for those lads."

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue have around 20 applications in use at the site, they say to avoid the area and pay attention to closures and diversions.

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