Nightmare of the wildfires
London’s burning: Terrified residents fled as these homes went up in flames yesterday in Wennington to the east of the capital. Major fires also hit Upminster, Wembley, Croydon and Dartford as the UK sweltered in temperatures over 40C, the hottest ever recorded here.
families fled for their lives yesterday as homes were engulfed by raging wildfires on the hottest day in UK history.
as temperatures soared to a record high of 40.3C (104.5f), a series of devastating blazes broke out across tinderbox Britain.
major incidents were declared in LONDON as a huge surge in fires put crews under immense pressure along with services in LEICESTER, HERTFORDSHIRE and SOUTH YORKSHIRE.
Roads were also closed as fires broke out alongside major motorways including the m25 and m1. emergency call centres were hit with tens of thousands of pleas for help.
in one of the most dramatic incidents, at least eight houses were engulfed by flames in the village of WENNINGTON, in the east london borough of Havering.
Dramatic aerial footage showed an entire row of semi-detached homes in grave peril, with almost half of them alight as apocalyptic plumes of smoke rose above the scene and rear gardens reduced to cinders.
Terrified residents were ordered out as 100 firefighters tried to halt a lethal wall of flame spreading from home to home, fanned by warm winds. One firefighter at the scene branded it ‘absolute hell’.
amid the scramble to evacuate, one woman said her uncle was trapped – and was ‘digging a trench’ around his house to thwart the flames. Police later rescued him.
With its Norman church, Wennington features in the Domesday Book, and it seemed an apt description last night amid the smouldering ruins of charred homes. local councillor susan Ospreay said: ‘Wennington Village has been completely devastated by fire.’ The inferno appears to have been sparked by a burning compost heap around 1pm in parched grassland adjacent to Wennington fire station – which meant firefighters were immediately on the scene.
But they fought in vain to stop it rapidly spreading on to tinder dry scrubland and incinerating back gardens. as homes were gutted, residents said they could hear the sound of panicked horses whinnying in a surrounding field.
lorry driver Gary Rouel, 64, told how he raced back from work after a phone call from his wife Debbie, 64, saying: ‘she just said, “The house has gone up in flames.”
mrs Rouel, a dinner lady, tried to round up the couple’s three cats and their dog as firefighters ordered her to evacuate.
mr Rouel said: ‘it’s terrible. i’ve just finished paying off the mortgage two months ago. it’s heartbreaking. my wife has [the lung condition] COPD and the fireman was just telling her “Get out, get out!”.’
The couple’s son William, 33, who lives in
Halstead, Essex said: ‘ My mum sent me a picture of the fire outside the home from the bathroom. She was still in there when it was coming up to the house.
‘It started in the field, then came into the garden, then it was up to the decking and the conservatory. We think the neighbour’s house has gone too. It’s awful, I watched on TV as the house went up in flames.’ Distressed residents could be seen carrying buckets of water to the Lennards Arms pub where the community had gathered. Others were hurriedly removing gas canisters from the pub.
As the blaze drew nearer, police evacuated the building. Landlord Walter Martin, 60, said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s awful. People are devastated.’ Pensioner Lynn Sabberton said: ‘The police came to our house and told us to get what we could.’
Brian Brazier, 75, added: ‘The fire has burnt my stables out. It started as a little fire around the back of the houses and if someone had been there to put it out we wouldn’t have had all this trouble.’
Resident Janet Hickey, 70, who has terminal pancreatic cancer, said she was forced to leave all her cancer drugs behind as they were evacuated. She said: ‘I’ve got all my cancer drugs in the fridge.’
As buildings surrounding the Grade II-listed medieval St Mary and St Peter’s Church caught fire, vicar Rev Elise Peterson called for people to pray for the community.
The scorching heat smashed the previous British record of 38.7C (102F). Properties faced unprecedented threats on a day when millions of people were working from home. Boris Johnson paid tribute to firefighters and frontline workers keeping the country safe.
Black smoke billowed across traffic on the A2 near DARTFORD, Kent, as bone dry heathland next to the busy route led to a series of fierce blazes. Flames up to 30ft high spread to create a half-milelong sheet of fire
The fires came within yards of Spirits Rest, a horse and animal sanctuary. Owner Christine Bates, 63, said: ‘I was just terrified for the animals. We got the horses into the back field, and local residents have now got chickens in their gardens and other people are looking after our kittens. The fire brigade were here so quickly and fought it back maybe four times – but it just kept
springing up again.’ London was burning with ‘significant’ fires in UPMINSTER, PINNER, CROYDON, WEMBLEY, HENDON and SOUTHGATE. At Zennor, near St Ives in CORNWALL, there was a major gorse blaze, and at STONEHENGE, Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Service fought to protect the ancient monument from a blaze nearby.
Children and staff fled the KiddiCaru nursery in MILTON KEYNES which was destroyed by fire at lunchtime. In OLDHAM, GREATER MANCHESTER, police said at least four moorland fires had been ‘started deliberately’. One blaze at Lickey Hills Country Park near BIRMINGHAM spread to 50,000 square metres and forced 15 people to flee their homes.
London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted that the situation was ‘critical’ – but he was criticised for using the day’s events as a way to promote his controversial car control measures, the ULEZ low-emission zone.
In Yorkshire last night, six houses were reported to be on fire in BARNSLEY.
In SKELLOW, near DONCASTER, grass fires came within feet of homes, while in MANCHESTER, actress Faye McKeever – who appeared in the Sky 1 sitcom Trollied – tweeted a photo of her back garden fence ablaze. Additional reporting by James Tozer and Chris Brooke