A FARMER who had just finished harvesting his crops saw it all go up in smoke when a fire ripped through 1,000 bails of hay.

Eric Bell, from Salter Burn House Farm, Butterknowle, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, saw his entire crop catch fire within minutes, along with several pieces of expensive farm machinery, when his barn was struck by lightning.

About 100 tonnes of hay was destroyed, and fire crews spent 12 hours at the scene.

Mr Bell said: "The full season's crop has gone. Within ten minutes the whole shed was on fire.

"Luckily, the cattle weren't in there at the time because usually they stop in the same shed."

He had heard the lightning strike at about 5.30am, not realising at first it was his barn that had been hit.

He said: "There were two cracks of thunder, so I went to look out of my window and at first I thought it was a tree on fire.

"I watched for two or three minutes before I realised it was the hay shed. It started out as a patch of fire and within ten minutes it has spread right along the 80ft building."

Mr Bell managed to free his three dogs from the shed and two fire crews brought the flames under control and prevented them spreading to a nearby building.

District Commander Dave Smith, based at Newton Aycliffe, said: "When you get a fire among straw or hay you usually let it burn out, otherwise it causes more inconvenience to the farmer who can't use it as animal feed because it's damaged by smoke.

"That's why we had to be at the scene all day."