Crews are at the scene on Pewsey Hill, where around 20 acres are burning across three fields. Swindon firefighters were joined by crews from Pewsey, Marlborough, Devizes and Andover. Emergency responders were called at 12.11pm today. and they use five hose reel jets and one main jet to control the fire. Large billowing clouds of smoke can be seen for miles around. This is not the first fire to break out on Salisbury Plain this summer. Several days without rain dried out the county’s countryside and provided the conditions in which fires spread more quickly. Firefighters spent days battling a large blaze on Ministry of Defense land south of Urchfont during a military training exercise in July. Helicopters were called in to drop water on the forest as temperatures exceeded 30C. People living nearby had to keep their windows closed and reported seeing a haze-like smoke fill the sky. And a week earlier, 35 hectares of land had gone up in smoke in another part of Salisbury Plain.
