The village laid waste by heatwave inferno
Families count the cost after fire turns their homes into charred ruins
DEVASTATED families yesterday told how their homes were destroyed in just minutes by raging infernos.
Houses were reduced to charred rubble as wildfires tore through towns and villages during Tuesday’s record-breaking heatwave.
It was the busiest day since the Second World War for London’s fire service, while veteran fire chiefs elsewhere called it ‘brutal’. Nationwide, at least 63 homes were burnt down.
Wennington, a tiny village of 300 people to the east of London, was in danger of being wiped off the map as 50 homes were engulfed, 19 of them all but incinerated.
Resident Tim Stock likened the smouldering wreckage of his family home of 60 years to ‘a scene from the Blitz’. He and his wife Maggie fled for their lives as the wall of flame leapt from home to home. One little girl spent the night vomiting ash after being hastily evacuated with her mother.
Nationwide, at least 16 firefighters were injured during the fierce battles to save lives and properties, and 15 overstretched fire services declared a major incidents. They included London, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Leicestershire.
Mark Hardingham, chairman of the National Fire Chiefs Council, said: ‘I’ve been in the fire service for over 30 years now and yesterday was just about the busiest I’ve ever seen.’
West Yorkshire deputy chief firefighter Dave Walton added: ‘ What the hell just happened? It has been brutal – 999 calls were stacked and bouncing around the various fire controls around the country. Fire crews were going from one incident to the next, to the next.’
An overheating compost heap in a back garden at Wennington was being blamed for sparking the fire which quickly spread to tinder-dry grassland fanned by a warm wind. It ripped through properties in The Green, gutting them of belongings and memories.
Mr Stock, 66, said: ‘It was like a war zone. Down the main road, all the windows had exploded out, all the roofs had caved – it was like a scene from the Blitz, really.
‘We tried to control it with a hosepipe and watering can. It overwhelmed us too quickly. It was gone within ten minutes. My family has been here since 1953, but everything is gone – all the photo albums, stacks of records.’
Dr Dee Ncube, 47, escaped with her two children. She said that her ten-year- old daughter was ‘vomiting soot’ throughout the night as doctors treated her for smoke inhalation.
Stableowner Brian Brazier, 75, suffered burns to his arm and neck after he broke through a cordon to run into his blazing property and save his five horses. He told the Mail: ‘I wouldn’t let them burn.’
Post Office worker Olufunke Akinfe, 54, added: ‘I was working from home in the study and I could smell burning. By the time I got back into my garden, my outdoor doormat was on fire.’
A dramatic aerial photo of Wennington’s medieval stone church showed it apparently unscathed – but surrounded by scorched earth.
The vicar, Elise Peterson said: ‘This is a deeply shocking and worrying time for people in Wennington. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has been affected.’
In the picture postcard Norfolk coastal village of Brancaster Staithe a wildfire engulfed gardens and five homes. Crews were able to save more properties by dousing them with 100,000 litres of water from Jeanne and Derek Woodhouse’s swimming pool.
Six homes were destroyed in Barnsley after a fire started where children were playing between a garden shed and a boundary fence. Neighbours fought the flames with a hosepipe and rescued residents as they waited for the fire brigade.
Also in South Yorkshire, photos showed destroyed homes in Maltby and Kiverton Park, both in Rotherham. In Dagenham, east London, 130 people had to be evacuated when a wildfire in Beam Parklands spread to residential roads.