NFU Mutual is calling for visitors to the countryside to take extreme care to avoid starting grass and moorland fires. The rural insurer is concerned that the current unusually dry conditions could lead to grassland and arable crop fires.

The exceptionally dry spring followed by a hot Easter weekend has led to tinder-dry conditions and dozens of fires have broken out across the country including on Bodmin Moor, moorland on the outskirts of St Austell and on Dartmoor.

In Wales, homes were evacuated as a fire which started near the Blaenau Ffestiniog slate quarries threatened to spread to the neighbouring village.

Tim Price, NFU Mutual Rural Affairs Specialist said: ’Huge areas of land across the whole of the UK are at risk of fire – putting lives of people and farm animals at risk as well as destroying wildlife and growing crops.’

He also called for country dwellers and visitors to report people acting suspiciously on moorland to police as a number of fires are believed to have been started deliberately.