Oct 19, 20212 min read

Oh Dear....a FIRE!!😯🤐

Yes, that is (or should I say was) our mower. 'Betsy' (the mower) was a Ransomes HR330t, quite an old mower, 07 reg and and absolute beast of a mower! I believe it was an ex-council mower as it was always leaking hydraulic oil, bursting pipes and popping tyres, basically, it had not been maintained.

It all happened at the start of the summer holidays, school broke up on Thursday, so we had Friday to relax. Then on Saturday, we put a new part on the mower (may I say it was a blade pump and it was about £500😶). I had spent all Saturday on it, mowing various parts of the garden and verges that needed cutting, had Sunday off, and as it was holidays started again on Monday.

So, there I was, merrily cutting the grass going around the edges of our side field, and then cutting it up in segments (as you can see in the picture). Now, I was just turning into another run, when BOOM!! a load of flames shot out from under the chair to the right (left in the picture).

Instantly I jumped off in a panic, forgetting to turn off the engine and my mobile phone was left on the chair. I quickly ran back and shakingly turned the engine off, (knowing was standing by a time bomb) and grabbed my phone.

I rang dad, and him, not knowing the scale of the fire asked if I could put it out with a hose pipe😁 I quickly decided that that was not the case and rung the fire brigade.

Meanwhile...

The fire brigade arrived in about 6 mins and quickly put the fire out. But when you are in a situation like that, adrenaline rushing around your body, thoughts going through your head at about 1 million mph, it seems like a lifetime. I was running around like a lunatic, taking pictures and videos, sitting on the fence straining my ears to hear the approaching sirens. All in the meantime the fire was developing, and to the cyclists and walkers passing by, it must have sounded really bad. There were various bangs as the tyres blew, and then 2 BOOMs when the fuel and oil tanks went up, together with the huge amount of smoke. It was no surprise to me the fact that passers-by were looking worriedly at the huge amount of smoke billowing out of the field.

View below the pictures of the fire and its aftermath😲

If you have any info or ideas you want me to write about in my blogs then please put them in the comment section below and I'll see what I can do!😁

Thanks for reading!