Behaviours need to change, says chief fire officer

A fire that began in the garden of a home in Pershore turned into a fast-moving blaze - the kind of "escalation" the county's fire chief describes as becoming far more common in the dry conditions.

Three homes were destroyed in the town centre on Thursday as dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes and hundreds left without power.

The government sent out an emergency alert on Friday across England and Wales, warning people not to light anything that could cause a fire.

Hereford and Worcester's Chief Fire Officer, Jon Pryce, said that unless people change everyday habits, more small sparks will turn into the kind of devastation seen across the West Midlands in the last week.

On Three Springs Road, neighbours watched the fire move with a speed they had never seen before. Embers blew across gardens, fences caught one after another, and trees "went in seconds", leaving residents with only minutes to react.

Six people were treated at the scene, and more than 30 homes were evacuated as crews tried to stop the fire jumping between cul‑de‑sacs.

Around the corner on Lancelot Court, builder, Michael Ruff, returned home to find embers flying "everywhere" and heard a series of explosions from a nearby property.

He said within ten minutes, his own house was ablaze with a large section of the roof missing, windows have blown out, and ash drifting across the garden.

Pryce said the government's emergency alert, sent at the request of fire services was needed. He told the BBC that fires that once would have burned out quietly are now racing through sheds, fences and trees, causing "significant" damage.

He said: "As someone whose been in the fire service for 34 years, what has been happening last year and this year particularly, the public in general terms need to start thinking about changing their behaviours and habits when it gets this dry and dangerous."

Pryce said since May, the service has attended 800 fires in the open, 12% of which were caused by bonfires, by people who "did not understand" what might happen.

"It was people in their 50s and 60s who thought they were doing the right thing - who thought they could control that bonfire in their garden.

"My crews went two weeks ago just over the border to Gloucestershire where an elderly man lost his life - this is serious what's going on in the country.

"Most people are not appreciating the effect if you get it wrong - which is so much more escalated when its as dry as it is."

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