A HUGE pall of smoke hung over the Felixstowe area today after arsonists set fire to a massive straw stack.The huge haystack - which measured 17 metres by 23 metres and was five metres high - was in a field off Capel Hall Lane at Trimley St Martin.
A HUGE pall of smoke hung over the Felixstowe area today after arsonists set fire to a massive straw stack.
The huge haystack - which measured 17 metres by 23 metres and was five metres high - was in a field off Capel Hall Lane at Trimley St Martin.
Although not easily accessible by road, police said today they are treating the blaze as suspicious.
The fire-raisers probably parked on a concrete store hardstanding off the road and would then have had to walk along a muddy track or across the field to the stack.
Fire crews from Felixstowe and Princes Street, Ipswich, were alerted to the blaze just before midnight.
They initially pumped water on the stack to stop it spreading to a nearby row of hedging and trees and then kept watch overnight.
This morning the stack, worth thousands of pounds, was still well alight with firefighters keeping watch.
Police appealed for anyone who may have seen anyone acting suspiciously near Capel Hall Lane, which is just off the A14 Trimley interchange, or has any information about the fire to contact them on 01473 613500.
It is the fourth stack fire on the Felixstowe peninsula since harvest, although some have been said to have self-ignited through heat generated inside the stacks
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