Farm fire cost rises four times faster in NI than across the UK - 'rural fire and rescue needs proper investment, decent equipment and better access to water supplies'

“Fire has always been part of the risk of farming,” said Diana Armstrong.

“What is not normal is the cost here rising by nearly three quarters in a single year, four times faster than across the United Kingdom as a whole.

“Anyone who has been near a farm fire knows what it means,” she added.

"A shed goes up in the middle of the night and by morning a family has lost machinery it spent twenty years paying for, or stock it bred, or the winter’s feed. It takes minutes. Putting it back takes years, and some never do.

“Behind that £11.8 million are farming families already under real pressure, and a serious fire on top of everything else can finish a business".

The AERA Committee chairman said that “last year’s heat is a large part of why these figures jumped, and we are told to expect more summers like it”.

“That is not a reason to shrug. It is a reason to be ready,” she added.

“Farmers will do what they can.

"Keep the machinery and the electrics checked, think about the yard, consider fire suppression systems where they are worth having

"But prevention cannot fall to farmers alone, and nobody seriously argues that it should.

“The part nobody wants to talk about is how long it takes a fire crew to reach a farm up a lane, and what they find when they get there.

"Rural fire and rescue needs proper investment, decent equipment and better access to water supplies in an emergency.

"Anyone living in a rural townland will understand exactly why”.

Ms Armstrong said she will be asking ‘what assessment has been made of rural fire service response times and of water access for firefighting in rural areas, because a farm fire is lost or saved in the first half hour’.

She added: “£11.8 million is not a statistic. It is sheds, herds, machinery and livelihoods, and one of the steepest rises anywhere in the United Kingdom.”