Residents flee homes as fierce blaze erupts

Fence fire spreads to house

Flames reached into the sky as a dramatic blaze started near flats in Peterborough.

Residents dashed to find hosepipes when the fire started at about 10.30pm last night in Gordon Avenue, Woodston.

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service said the fire spread to a house.

Alex Thirtle, who lives near where the fire started, said: “My girlfriend noticed that our garden was suddenly brightly lit and asked if someone had lit a huge bonfire in their garden.

“We ran out to the front and there were already a lot of others in the street you could see flames from over the roof of the flats on Gordon Avenue.

“I asked if anyone had rang the fire brigade and someone said they had and that everybody was out of the properties backing onto it already.

“I went down the side of a neighbours property to see how far it had spread towards the flats and our house then took the photo.

“It was very hot, I was stood 20 feet away and it was difficult to look at. We were making sure all our neighbours were awake and aware of it and started looking for a hose to flood the ground between the fire and the garden next door to it.

“Then four fire engines arrived, it seemed to me they got there under 10 minutes of me first being aware of it. It took them maybe five minutes more to have the fire under control.”

A Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue service spokesman said: “At 10.23pm on Monday crews from Dogsthorpe and Stanground were called to a fire on Gordon Avenue in Woodston.

“Firefighters arrived to find a fire involving a fence that had spread to a house.

They extinguished the fire using hose reels and cleared the smoke using a positive pressure ventilation fan.

“The crews returned to their stations by 12.20am.

“The cause of the fire was accidental.”

The fire at its height