Film crew shooting star-studded drama help put out large fire

A film crew shooting scenes for a star-studded costume drama came to the rescue, after more than 20 acres of cornfields were destroyed by a series of fires which broke out along the Weybourne Road railway embankment towards Sheringham.

Six appliances and two water carriers were called to a large fire near Weybourne Windmill, with a further three crews attending smaller fires towards Sheringham golf course.

Norfolk Fire Service operational support officer Paul Richardson said the cause of the blaze, which took just over an hour to extinguish, was as yet unknown.

Praising firefighters for their fast actions in 'arduous conditions', he added: 'Standing corn will burn as quick as you can run, but what we were able to do was to stop the fire from spreading into the next field, which would then have impinged on housing.'

He thanked the film crew, who were working on Weybourne beach on an adaptation of Dickens' David Copperfield starring Dev Patel, Hugh Laurie and Peter Capaldi.

'They saw the fire from where they were and brought up their own water carrier so went around the fire ground topping up our tanks, which was really good of them,' Mr Richardson explained.

Nigel Smith, of Priory Holdings, which owns the fields, said the site had previously been hit by fire in 2002.