FIRE-RAISERS have destroyed a barn and its entire contents of straw and grain near the village of Great Durnford - the third arson attack on farms in the Amesbury area this year and the second time that particular barn has been attacked.

The latest blaze caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage, destroying a four-bay Dutch barn, burning to ash 300 large round bales of straw and leaving more than 250 tons of grain useless and unsellable.

Firefighters were kept busy for more than 15 hours fighting the blaze at North Farm, Great Durnford, and were put at risk because of exploding asbestos from the roof.

A ministry of defence police patrol raised the alarm soon after 3am last Wednesday and firefighters from Amesbury, Salisbury and Wilton went to the blaze in a field off Durnford Track, which runs from White Railings on the Salisbury-Amesbury road into the village of Great Durnford.

Flames were leaping 40ft into the air as firefighters arrived, and the barn and contents were well alight.

Half of the barn was full of baled straw and the other half contained freshly-harvested grain.

The straw was destroyed and any grain that survived the fire was contaminated by water and fragments of asbestos.

It took firefighters until 7.30am to get the blaze under control and crews were on standby duty until 6.15pm that evening, 15 hours after the outbreak started.

A fortnight earlier, a barn and its contents at Vineys Farm, Amesbury - only a mile or so away - had been destroyed after someone set fire to it.

In July, arsonists attempted to set fire to the Durnford barn by setting bales alight but firefighters were able to extinguish the fire before it spread to the barn.