Farm on the M62: 'With a heavy heart that we watched our neighbours land go up in flames' - Jill Thorp

But this last one was on an area I’d not seen burn before and right on our doorstep.

Paul sent me a photo whilst I was at work, a familiar view from our back field, but with a huge great billowing cloud of smoke filling the skies.

It didn’t take long for the fire to take hold; a very hot day and breeze saw it quickly gather momentum with flames too tall and ferocious for anyone to tackle.

The great bankings of tinder dry grass and bracken provided the perfect fuel and with smoke engulfing the road and drifting towards the motorway, things became very serious.

The fire service never cease to amaze me with the speed and efficiency in which they deal with these endless out of control fires. The heat that day was stifling, but yet they headed out in all their heavy protective gear and set to work.

For once the motorway was our ally and kept the fire away from us, but it was with a heavy heart that we watched our neighbours land go up in flames. This recent spate of deliberate vandalism to our countryside is abhorrent.

It puts countless lives at risk; the firefighters, farmers and gamekeepers.

It destroys endless wildlife; many small reptiles and mammals rarely seen, but no less important than their more visible counterparts perish, livestock is often lost as they become trapped against fencing in a desperate, panicked bid to escape the flames. And nests burn. Chicks still not on the wing flounder as their parents frantically call to them from above.

I blame each and every person who discards litter, a glass bottle after a picnic or throws a cigarette end from a car window. Those that still think they have the right to bring a disposable BBQ to our uplands or camp out around a fire, they are responsible for this devastation.

And I have no words for those that park up, take a short stroll onto our precious moors and put a match to them.

These fires scarcely warrant a mention on the national news and I have yet to see any of our “environmentalists” shouting from the rooftops about the far reaching consequences of our peat moorlands and their endangered wildlife going up in smoke.

With nobody willing or able to take responsibility for policing our National Parks, our SSSI moorlands and Open Access ground, the destruction will continue, unabated.

Walls and fences will be damaged, gates left open, livestock worried and killed and livelihoods damaged. We will, without a doubt in the near future, reach a fresh spring morning devoid of any Curlews soaring above our heads.

The heather and bilberry will vanish and the countryside that so many of us have spent a lifetime working and nurturing will disappear for good.