A large fire has destroyed over 80 cars after it broke out in the car park of the Boomtown music festival on Friday.
Car owners have been finding out today whether their vehicle was one of the 85 destroyed in a huge fire at a music festival near Winchester. An investigation is under way into how the fire started yesterday afternoon at the Boomtown Fair. The cars were completely destroyed but there were no injuries.
www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/2016-08-13/fire-crews-tackle-large-blaze-at-boomtown/
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I wonder if one of them was a Zafira?
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On sky site they showed another view, where there was an area of stubble next to the cars. One RTFM idiot may have parked on that, and the hot cat did the rest.
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Highly probable, now you mention it. It's been quite dry for a few weeks and our grass looks pretty desiccated.
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Had one here a few years back... loads of blokes turn up at a big wedding, park on the field adjacent to the church.
Oh dear.
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A lot of arable farmers burn their stubble, maybe a disgruntled farmer who didn't appreciate having the festival there decided that was the day to burn his.. hoping to "smoke" them out! ;-)) and it got away on him ??
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I thought stubble burning was made illegal years ago
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Burning of linseed stubble is still legal.
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You are right! - banned in 1993! - I try to keep fairly upto date with farming practices (occasionaly buy Farmers Weekly!) but totally missed that one !! ;-)
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Use to be widespread whne I first up to Norfolk in the late seventies. I seem to remember there were a number of road accidents caused by dense clouds of smoke drifting over roads.
Stubble all ploughed in now although there are some farmers who would like a return to burning for certain forms of weed control
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It wouldn't surprise me if they were all parked on stubble. I've been to plenty of steam rallies in the South where that's been the case. Anyway, there's a photo gallery on the link below (the video's not worth looking at):
www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/boomtown-fair-fire-leaves-more-11744876
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Many years ago, there was a BBC World Service transmitting station on Borough Hill, Daventry and I briefly worked there. Stubble burning was quite a big problem as the smoke and debris laden air was pretty conductive - if you are trying to radiate 600kW or more. Flashovers and resultant VSWR (standing wave) trips were commonplace and caused quite a lot of running about, resetting things, and turning power down which was only done in extremis as the power was needed to get the coverage.
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When strawburning was banned, farmers had difficulty dealing with all the straw, partly because it's no longer used much for bedding on cattle and pig farms. To cope, new strains of corn were introduced which had shorter stems so that less straw was produced. A side effect was that the corn could better withstand strong winds. They also started cutting the corn higher up to leave longer stalks which could be chopped up with a disc harrow and then ploughed into the ground.
That's how I think it was/is. Correct me, please, if you know I'm mistaken. It's a topic I find interesting.
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The output had an interesting effect on local TV reception. World Service whether you wanted it or not, at 9pm! Also metal-framed windows quietly played WS - perhaps the glass acted as a speaker cone!
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Tales of local 'interference' were legion in Daventry. Try a gas cooker - that could receive too! Not at that site, but I recall a transmitting station spark 'talking' by directly ionising the air in quantities related to the modulation.
Quite a giggle really, operating high power AM. More frightening than dangerous, earthing a mast at an active MW site could lead to fat sparks over a foot long.
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Fascinating place Daventry - the nuclear shelter with its accommodation, radio and supplies and the basement - which had a nickname which I cannot for the life of me remember.
Daventry started the Empire Service in the early 30s. Had a plaque above the door of the now almost derelict building used as a store IIRC.
As for interference, then Arqiva's uplink place on the M25 near Watford was the one. Even the telephones picked up the radio!
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>>>Fascinating place Daventry - the nuclear shelter with its accommodation, radio and supplies and the basement - which had a nickname which I cannot for the life of me remember. <<<
Did they have guns there to keep out unwanted refugees seeking shelter? Like the families of the designated employees?
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No, but don't forget I was involved quite a long time after it was really seen as relevant, so who knows if it did in the past.
Beds, stores, radio (with all books and those other manuals needed). Little hatches to look through to see outside etc. etc.
Fascinating people working there, albeit far fewer than in its heyday.. Genuine technicians who understood what they were dealing with and could really repair / fix / make the stuff. Not just PCB swappers.
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Most bomb shelters in latter days were called 'deferred facilities'. Admittedly there were more technicians, but there were perhaps three proper engineers per shift - and could easily have got chartered status at an earlier date.
Later on, chartered status became very hard to get - I failed and my sponsor who was one of very few at such a level in the BBC (senior adviser, if the DG wanted to know - he'd ask him) said he'd have not got it either if those rules applied. I might have been sucessful on a latter attempt, but I decided not to bother. Most people who wrote to the BBC as A. Smith C Eng would then go on to demonstrate spectacular misunderstandings and leave one wondering how on earth they ever qualified.
One of them, who was known as a pest and used to write letters to staff members never did so to anyone near me after I wrote to him. Cannot remember the subject other than it was something I know a lot about and I technically shot him to pieces. Quit funny really.
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SP, can you remember what the cellars in the main building were nicknamed? Was it "The Crypt"?
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Yup, the crypt. Cellars in all transmitter buildings were known as the crypt, not just Daventry. No need for them with modern 1950 onwards or so transmitters, but water cooled and high voltages do rather present an interesting challenge :o)
More modern transmitters were uniformly air cooled - much more sensible.
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I didn't realise they were all called The Crypt.
It all got a bit sad in later days; For example, the social clubs which had been exceptionally active just died. I remember, for example, that we ended up breaking all the full size, snooker tables because we couldn't give them away, never mind sell them.
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Two reasons why, much less short-wave broadcasting takes place now. Only Wooferton remains whereas when I joined the BBC in 1981, Daventry, Skelton, and Rampisham were all active on shortwave and Orfordness for 648kHz MW (directional towards Europe, but still could be heard with a good radio and aerial in much of the UK, even if never admitted).
And overseas, Cyprus and Ascension Island (interestingly not in the Wikipedia page, but then we all know not to depend on that, don't we...).
Before the sites closed, the number of staff was falling as the more modern transmitters were not only less used, but they didn't need as many people to look after them either. I have been in the Daventry club in the early 80's and it wasn't busy then, although retired staff did swell the usage.
Times change, if I had to label a single event that started the end, it has to be the fall of the Berlin wall. I still regret not jumping on a plane - just to say, "I was there". I nearly did too!
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>> and the hot cat did the rest.
Or a DPF. They can get very hot during a regen.
They've been known to melt tarmac when garages perform a forced regen. A colleagues Mondeo's DPF has been giving him problems recently and he booked it into the garage to be looked at. He went to pick it up and they were spraying cold water all over the rear bumper while performing a forced regen. The garage told him they've seen bumpers melt with the excess heat from the exhaust system.
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>> The garage told him they've
>> seen bumpers melt with the excess heat from the exhaust system.
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Certainly there's strong smell of burning and the engine fans are roaring if Mrs BP gets out of her VW Tiguan while it's doing one its active regens. I image all later VWs with the 2 litre diesel would be the same.
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As Eric Morecambe might have said John Boy, you've got all the right facts but in the wrong order. Wheat plant breeding proceeded rapidly in the 70s, when India for example experienced its green revolution, with the development of short strawed so called semi-dwarf varieties, widely grown in the 80s. The impetus was to make the plant more resistant to "lodging", the propensity to be laid flat by wind and weather, coupled with perhaps too much fertiliser.
Straw burning gained in popularity at that time with the introduction of zero tillage and direct drilling made possible by the use of herbicides to kill off weeds, but this did not dispose of the residual trash from the previous crop. Burning was a simple, effective, quick as well as socially end environmentally unpopular way of getting rid of crop residues, which resulted in it being banned.
Advances in crop varieties, pesticides and husbandry techniques led to the UK becoming self sufficient in wheat in the early 80s helped by our accession to the EU and better prices. I was an agronomist at the time involved in development work with new varieties and husbandry techniques.
Just to make the car connection, we were very cautious about driving over stubble as straw etc would become tangled around the prop shaft. At the extreme it could clog to the point of bringing the car to a halt, and even starting to smoulder and burn. Happy days.
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>> Just to make the car connection, we were very cautious about driving over stubble as
>> straw etc would become tangled around the prop shaft. At the extreme it could clog
>> to the point of bringing the car to a halt, and even starting to smoulder
>> and burn. Happy days.
>>
I have had that problem with tractors with a partially exposed prop shaft to the front axle.
Last edited by: Old Sundodger on Sun 14 Aug 16 at 22:22
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Some long straw wheat is still grown for thatching. Round here the traditional thatching material is reed although sadly most is now imports from China rather than cut from the Broads.
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As I recall, reed thatch lasts longer but doesn't have the pretty appearance that straw gives for a couple of years. Woe betide you if you renew the thatch with reed in some areas as they'll make you do it again with straw...
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Cause of the fire - a discarded cigarette.
"A spokesman for Hampshire Fire and Rescue said that their investigation has concluded that a discarded cigarette igniting stubble around the parked cars is the probable cause"
www.itv.com/news/meridian/2016-08-15/boomtown-fire-started-by-a-cigarette/
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Ta.
manatee wrote: "Highly probable, now you mention it. It's been quite dry for a few weeks and our grass looks pretty desiccated."
Many years ago, was playing golf during a local drought. (The course was so dry that teeing up on the fairway was allowed.)
A couple of times discarded cigarettes started small fires - smouldering outwards in the short grass from the epicentre. Fortunately, they were all nipped in the bud by the following golfers, who used the only water source available to them... if you know what I mean.
Club rules then became no smoking on the course, and everyone had to carry a 2l bottle of water.
The caddies weren't very happy.
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Boomtown Music Festival. Over 80 cars burnt out - Boxsterboy
