Firefighters battled to stop vast swathes of open farmland being engulfed in flames today as the mercury topped 35c in many parts of the country. These dramatic aerial photographs show a huge area of farmland near Chesterfield in Derbyshire, left charred and blackened by a fierce blaze. A solitary tree was left standing as flames nibbled at the edge of a field of barley or wheat. Two fire-tenders stood nearby, dwarfed by the landscape and huge pall of smoke which drifted into hot, still sky.