Mr McIntosh indicated to the Examiner last week that the only means in which the 200 tonnes of corn spread across 80 acres could be removed was manually. Following the publication of the article Mr McIntosh and his employees began to pick up the corn by hand.

Residents interested in helping in the clean up are offered the corn, which can only be used as stockfeed.

In response to the RFS statement contained in the article which said “headers are known for starting fires particularly in dry conditions. Most harvest operators carry extinguishers,” Header operator John Rogers wished to clarify that the John Deere CTS ‘98 model header which caused the corn crop fire at ‘Clarevaulx’ last Wednesday as a result of a bearing failure, did in fact carry fire extinguishers.

“But the extinguishers are certainly not (capable of) for fighting crop fires,” Mr Rogers said. “They are used to look after the machinery which can be worth up to half a million dollars.”