Trainee pilot stops farm fire spreading using What3Words

A trainee pilot from Bedfordshire has been praised for stopping the spread of a field fire, after spotting smoke from a burning combine harvester while up in the air last harvest.

Flying a small Piper Cherokee aircraft, Jack Giles, alongside instructor Matt McAsh, saw a large cloud of smoke coming from a nearby field, and circled the area to investigate.

The pair sighted a combine harvester that had caught fire and, due to windy conditions, noted the fire was spreading towards the next field at speed.

See also: Farmer trapped under half tonne straw bale saved by What3Words app

© What3Words

Mr Giles called air traffic control to alert the emergency services, but soon found that, despite the aircraft’s radar system, they were struggling to accurately describe the location of the fire.

Flying at around 1,000ft, Mr Giles accessed the What3Words app, which he used to identify the location and pass to the air traffic controller, allowing the Shefford Community Fire service to arrive at the field within 10 minutes.

Mr Giles said: “I can’t even imagine what would have happened if there were people around – the outcome could have been fatal, or the fire could have spread further if help didn’t get there so quickly.

“I’d only used [What3Words] for meeting my friends, and sharing the entrance to our wedding venue on our invites – but never where help was urgently needed.

“I was so impressed with how well What3Words worked in that situation.”

The What3Words app works by dividing the globe into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, giving each square a unique combination of three words.

This combination can then be used to navigate to a precise location, and, crucially, the service works offline, making it ideal for areas with unreliable data connection, including many farms and fields across the country.