Man's lucky escape after house fire reignites

10:09am Friday 29th August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A man had a lucky escape on Friday morning after he returned to sleep in a fire damaged building, only for the blaze to reignite hours later.

Fire crews from around the county battled with a house fire on Milford Road from 9.02 on Thursday night into the early hours of Friday morning.

The roof of the property was well alight when firefighters arrived on the scene, and the top two floors of the three storey house had been severely damaged by fire.

Crews from Milford Haven, Narberth and Haverfordwest, used two hose reel jets, four sets of breathing apparatus, a thermal imaging camera and a turn table ladder to fight the blaze. People were also evacuated from neighbouring properties for a short time.

The occupant of the building had singed his hair in the blaze but declined to go to Withybush Hospital by ambulance.

Pembrokeshire county commander, Nick Webley, said that fire crews had done a lot of work to make sure no fire remained in the attic conversion, cutting away fire damaged parts of the structure.

However, despite fire fighters' best efforts the blaze re-ignited at the back of the house at around 6.30 on Friday morning. The occupant of the building was woken by fire crews who got him out of the house. Police closed the road to allow fire crews access to the property.

"Even with the best efforts fire can remain in hidden pockets of the building," said commander Webley. "We were not aware that the occupant would reoccupy the building."

He said that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the blaze and that neighbouring properties would be offered a free home fire safety check.

"If you are doing DIY it pays to check the work at regular intervals afterwards," he said. "It also pays to make sure you have a working smoke alarm and to have a free home fire safety check carried out by the fire brigade."

To book a free home fire safety check contact the mid and west Wales fire and rescue service on 0800 169 1234.