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FIRE SERVICE FILM HIGHLIGHTS WHEAT BAG DANGERWest Sussex Fire & Rescue Service has teamed up with neighbours Surrey and East Sussex to release a film highlighting the dangers of overheating wheat bags. The dramatic footage shows a wheat bag heated in a microwave for in excess of the manufacturers instructions and placed inside bedding where it begins to smoulder and then catches light to a pillow developing into a huge blaze. It can take 2 to 3 hours for an overheated wheat bag to generate sufficient heat to cause bedding to smoulder, but once smouldering it only takes a couple of minutes for the bed to become fully engulfed in flames. By this time the occupant may be fast asleep and unable to react to the fire. Wheat bags are therapeutic heating pads, usually containing buckwheat or wheatgrass, used a source of warmth or to relieve aches and pains. They come in all shapes and sizes and have become an increasingly popular alternative to hot water bottles, particularly amongst older residents, but if used incorrectly can lead to a devastating fire. In recent months all three fire services have been called into action to tackle fires started because of wheat bags. In January, West Sussex fire crews were called to two wheat bag blazes in less than a week, one of which resulted in an eighty year old woman requiring hospital treatment. This prompted fire investigation officers from the neighbouring counties to carry out the controlled demonstration at Surrey’s purpose built …