It was purely by chance Darling Downs farmer Lyndon Hoopert was standing behind a water truck when his workman called to say the header was on fire.
Mr Hoopert and his wife Michelle planted 210 hectares of wheat and 113ha of barley at Glenlea, Jondaryan, but had 40ha of Lancer wheat razed by fire on Thursday afternoon.
"It was about 2.40pm that Mitch rang me, he was on the header and said it was on fire," Mr Hoopert said.
"At the time I was standing behind a water truck so it was good timing. I rolled up the hose and headed straight to him."
Four Rural Fire Service crews attended the blaze, including the Jondaryan and Bowenville brigades.
Mr Hoopert said the wind gusts were terrible as they worked to extinguish the fire.
"Even after it was all over and we were trying to get the header home and you were outside, the wind was roaring and blowing dust in your eyes," he said.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Ricus Lombard said the nearby Oakey Airport weather station recorded south westerly wind gusts up to 69km/h on Thursday afternoon.
"The fire danger rating for the Darling Downs was severe to locally extreme," Mr Lombard said.
Prior to the fire, the crop had been averaging 2.7 tonne/hectare.
Mr Hoopert said they were able to get the harvester out of the crop pretty quickly and it is able to be repaired.
"We found a bearing that had failed, which was only replaced two years ago and we haven't used the header since really, we haven't had a crop to do," Mr Hoopert said.
"I don't know what happened there."
