Heavy clouds of black smoke over Marlborough last night (Thursday) lead to fears that St John’s School or neighbouring housing was on fire.
But it turned out to be a tractor in a field running parallel with the school entrance road, the machine bursting into flames for no apparent reason and sending up flames and huge clouds of smoke.
Firemen wearing breathing apparatus and using two hoses put out the blaze after being called to the site just before 6pm.
And they were watched by people who drove into the site alarmed by the smoke pouring into the sky.
“We thought it was the school that was ablaze,” one of them told Marlborough News Online. “The amount of smoke made the fire look much worse than it was.”
The tractor was left a blackened shell, the driver obviously escaping unharmed.
