Garages destroyed in village fire
A huge fire broke out in a row of garages in Langford, Bedfordshire at around 6pm on 3rd March.
Many homes had to be evacuated by police and the village’s main road closed. Bedfordshire and Luton Fire Service attended the incident.
A spokesperson for the fire service said: “There was a block of four brick garages that were on fire at the rear of the houses. We sent two fire crews from Biggleswade and one from Shefford. We also had other support vehicles from Bedford that were there because of the scale of the incident. One of the garages was thought to have cylinders in it of liquid petroleum gas and acetylene. When cylinders are involved there is the potential that they could explode and in that situation we evacuate the vicinity. People were evacuated in the 200m vicinity to make sure that if they were to explode there would be no injuries. We had a number of ground monitors and jets. Water was put on to the fire and it was declared safe at 1.36am.”
Due to the buildings containing gas cylinders, it took fire crews longer to control the fire, but residents were allowed to go back to their homes, three hours after they were evacuated.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Reading school evacuated after light fitting causes fire
Firefighters were called to a fire at a school in Calcot, Berkshire on 27th January after a burning light fitting fell from the ceiling setting fire to the desks below.
Luckily no children were in the classroom at the time but about 20 children had to be evacuated from that section of the school when the fire alarms were activated.
Steve Andrews from Dee Road fire station said: “The classroom was absolutely black with smoke. If you smell burning from a light fitting, turn the light off, evacuate the building and call the fire service because they can catch light.”
Two people in critical condition after child starts fire with cigarette lighter
Two people are in a critical condition in hospital after a house fire in Bentilee. One child also required hospital treatment and three others escaped unhurt.
The incident happened on the morning of Monday 20th December and is thought to have been started by a three year old child playing with a cigarette lighter.
Firefighters took over an hour to put out the fire which started in one of the bedrooms. Luckily the smoke alarms were triggered which enabled the children in the other bedroom to evacuate the building quickly.
Mick Daniels, Newcastle station manager said “This incident highlights the importance of smoke alarms – without them the other children would not have been aware of the fire until it had developed further and could have then ended up trapped.”
The local community are helping the family, who lost most of their possessions in the fire, by collecting clothes, food and even Christmas presents.