Fire crews today rushed to a Stevenage tower block to tackle a blaze that left an upper floor heavily smoke-logged – but a neighbour’s intervention meant it was mostly out by the time they arrived.
Engines from Stevenage, Baldock & Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield stations attended the scene at Harrow Court, in Silam Road, after rubbish caught alight on the 12th storey.
The floor was heavily smoke-logged, and some residents were evacuated due to the smoke as firefighters used breathing apparatus and a hosereel to tackle the fire – which the watch commander said was mostly out when they arrived ‘after a neighbour stepped in’.
Watch commander Julian Stanley told the Comet: “It doesn’t matter how serious a fire looks, we still have to follow the same procedure.
“Even if it’s a small fire it has the potential to grow, and it is still quite a major operation because we’re dealing with a high-rise block of flats.”
A fire service spokeswoman told the Comet at 12.20pm that the fire was out, with everyone in the building accounted for.
Harrow Court was the scene of a 2005 fire tragedy that claimed the lives of hero firefighters Michael Miller and Jeffrey Wornham while they tried to rescue Natalie Close, who sadly also died.
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