Eynsham farmers tell of the moment they heard their barns were on fire

It was October 24, 2021, and the call came from a neighbouring farmer - telling them their barn was in flames.

“That’s the worst phone call I’ve ever had. It’s like somebody ringing and saying your house is burning down,” said Peter, 75.

They could see the smoke as they drove along the A40 from Witney towards Acre Hill Farm, the other side of the main road from Eynsham.

READ MORE: Enynsham barn £1m fire - Oxfordshire boy charged with arson

When they arrived at the cordon, the emergency services initially wouldn’t let them through – despite being told by the Summerfields that they were the landowners.

Smoke from the fire could be seen in the next county (Image: Submitted)

In the south east corner of the yard, three enormous Robinson sheds – put up between 1997 and 2010 and capable of storing around half a million square foot-worth of straw and hay – were ablaze.

Inside, over 200,000 tonnes of straw and hay were also alight, together with 22 pieces farm machinery and implements worth thousands of pounds.

The cost of the damage has been put at £1m and Peter and Michael are still counting the cost of the fire, their first in six decades of farming this corner of Oxfordshire.

Two of the boys were caught in nearby woodland after they were caught on a heat-seeking camera from a police helicopter.

A third was, reportedly, seen on CCTV nearby to have been picked up by a parent in the wake of the fire.

Last week, the boy who handed himself in and admitted starting the fire was given a four-month referral order at Oxford Youth Court, a type of community order that could see him do community service, and told to pay £61 in prosecution costs and victim surcharge.

He claimed to have set the fire ‘recklessly’ while playing with a lighter, having clambered onto haystacks inside the barn.

Firefighters at the scene of the blaze

His sentence was branded ‘a joke’ by the farmers whose barn the now 16-year-old boy destroyed in October 2021.

“The punishment doesn’t fit the crime, given what is has all cost,” said 38-year-old Michael Summerfield.

“It’s happening all over the country. They’re lucky that in this case they caught this kid.”

At its height, more than 40 firefighters from two counties battled the blaze.

The heat from the fire, which took 12 days to be extinguished, was estimated to be 1,600C and its centre and was so fierce that it scorched equipment kept more than 50 yards from the burning barn.

The emergency crews were concerned that one of those who set the fire could have fallen between the stacks.

Walking through the newly-rebuilt barn, Michael pointed out the towering stacks and the gaps between them.

“If they’d fallen between those stanchions they’d never have got back up," he said.

"They’d have been burnt alive. That was the biggest concern for the police; that they were still in there.”

His father, Peter, added of the emergency response: “They risked their lives for a stupid kid.”

Cattle in one of the sheds nearest the barn (Image: Oxford Mail)

The column of smoke was so tall it could be seen from the next county. Villagers in Freeland and the Hanboroughs, downwind of the fire, were told to keep windows and doors shut to prevent smoke getting into their homes. Dust from the burning building was left scattered across hundreds of acres of countryside.

The 200,000 tonnes of straw and hay destroyed in the fire was both the Summerfields’ stock for their own herd of 350 cattle and top-quality hay destined for the equestrian market.

As a result, they were forced to cut the size of their herd by half to around 175 as they had no feed or bedding for their cattle – and they had to buy-in fodder and bedding.

Hay and straw customers they had supplied for over a quarter of a century went to their competitors, and the farm is still building its customer base back up. Michael said it would take ‘years’ to recoup the losses.

Michael and Peter Summerfield (Image: Oxford Mail)

Hard to imagine, but it could have been even worse.

While the majority of the farm’s herd were still in the fields, around 30 beef cattle were in a shed directly next to the burning barns.

Quick-thinking members of the public opened the gate to allow the animals to escape to the adjacent field.

Had the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the Summerfields say, the flames could have spread to the entire complex of buildings around their pristine farmyard.

More than a year on, there is still a significant amount of frustration at the boys who caused the fire and the district judge who sentenced the one teenager who has faced justice.

Peter said: “It devastated the business. We’re only just getting over it now. They wouldn’t have done it in their own home.

“I knew they wouldn’t get anything. They’re too soft today. There’s no discipline, is there? If you or I had done a crime you’d have the book thrown at you.”

The father-and-son are speaking out now to illustrate the impact fires and anti-social behaviour has on farms like theirs.

Last year, insurers NFU Mutual said that in 2021 damage from arson attacks cost £8.4m – around double the previous year.

“It’s happening all over the country,” said Michael. “No one usually knows who’s done it, but in this case they were caught on CCTV.”

And while the Summerfields were insured – and praised their local insurers NFU Mutual – it is not, perhaps, the point.

Chairman of the National Farmers’ Union in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, Alex Nelms, echoed the sentiment.

“You don’t take out a policy hoping to use it. It’s a last resort,” he said.

Alex Nelms of the National Farmers Union

Although arson is still relatively rare on the county’s farms, anti-social behaviour and crimes like burglary are not.

And as with arson the impact can be both financial and emotional, said Mr Nelms. “It’s a sense of hopelessness that this act has happened to you and that you’re having to react to something that you never wanted to happen.

“And then you have to have all the repercussions; the time lost that follows it, with things like insurance.

“You hope that there’s some protection there - that’s what you’re paying for - but you don’t get your time paid for, the hours spent on the phone or the diesel burnt to replace your bales. That’s not factored in.

“There’s so many things you’d rather be doing with your time, rather than running around patching up the result of somebody else’s criminal behaviour.”

Inspector Stuart Hutchings manages Thames Valley Police’s rural crime team. Although there was not a ‘huge amount’ of arson in the region, the force had seen the ‘odd series’ of fires particularly during the summer.

The impact on the rural community he polices, however, could be significant. “It’s a serious offence and one that jeopardises not just the rural community but the welfare and safety of everyone who responds to that fire,” he said.

“But it also has a direct impact on the farmers farming the land, protecting our rural communities.”

Asked what message he had for those tempted to set fires in the countryside, Mr Hutchings told the Oxford Mail: “We will prosecute them to the best of our abilities and bring them to justice.”

Stuart Hutchings (Image: TVP)