CRIME scene investigators are probing a barn fire that caused hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage with police also checking three other blazes.

Farmer Brian Lock told how his new £150,000 combine harvester, a tractor, trailer, plough and £10,500 worth of barley straw went up in flames at Lower Burton near Dorchester and praised a former worker for saving one of his tractors from the burning barn.

Residents who were evacuated included a two-week-old baby and other children with one woman being carried over a fence by her neighbour and pushed up a grass hill in her wheelchair.

For the full story read Friday's paper