School leavers burning books causes risky fire in heatwave

Sarah Entwistle, 50, of Huncoat, was walking up Bolton Avenue Playing Fields when she spotted “a figure pop out the trees and look up towards her”.

She said: “I felt so unnerved, so I carried on walking but when I got to the top of the field there was smoke coming from the spot where the figure had been.

“I gave it ten minutes or so, then went back down to have a look.”

Remains of the schoolbooks that were set on fire on Bolton Avenue Playing Fields in Huncoat

The fire didn’t appear to be life threatening so Sarah called Hyndburn Fire station as she didn’t class it as an emergency and didn’t want to waste emergency services time.

Despite initially being reluctant, the call handler advised Sarah to dial 999 resulting in the fire brigade “unfortunately having to come out for this.”

After reporting the incident, Sarah waited for the fire crew to arrive to the field in Hyndburn and directed them to the spot with the burning books.

By the time they got there, the fire was almost out, however, the extreme hot weather and breeze on the day meant there was a risk of the fire reigniting.

Another photo of the fire taken by Sarah

As intended, there wasn’t much left of the educational books. The ground was mainly covered in ash, where only a few tattered and burnt pages remained.

The pages appear to be from an English textbook on how to structure essays.

Year 11s across the country finished their GCSE exams this year at the end of June, so a common trend for school leavers is to burn their books to mark the end of their high school era. However it is usually workbooks that are burned as opposed to textbooks like this one appeared to be.

The trend isn’t a new phenomenon, with people commenting on Sarah’s Facebook post about the books that they celebrated their last day of school the same way 30 years ago.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service have advised against starting fires after issuing a red extreme heat warning for East Lancashire.