Three hours before their fire station is closed down, rescue crews save family from blaze in Camden Town
Thursday, 9th January 2014
Published: 9 January, 2014
by TOM FOOT
FIRE crews from Belsize and Clerkenwell rushed to Camden Town to save a family from a burning building this morning (Thursday) – just three hours before the stations were offically closed.
Four fire engines and 21 firefighters battled the blaze on the fourth floor of a housing block in Oval Road, run by Genesis Housing, for an hour and a half from around 6am.
It was the last ever shouts for Belsize and Clerkenwell stations which are being shut down following cuts ordered by Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
Lisa Kelliher, who has two small children, lives on the fourth floor, next door to the flat in which the blaze began.
She said: “We got rescued from our home this morning at around six o'clock. The floor was thick full of smoke. My daughter woke me up, shouting. I woke up the whole family up but I didn't know what to do. We were panicking. We were banging on the door but the firefighters couldn't hear us because of the masks they were wearing. Finally they heard us and shouted: 'Right, open the door'. They wrapped us up in blankets and took us out.”
She added: “The firemen said if it had been an extra 20 minutes or so it would have come through into our flat.”
The London Fire Brigade said crews from Kentish Town and Euston were the first to get to blaze, within four minutes, with Belsize and Clerkenwell following close behind. But it was a “four pump job” and 21 firefighters were needed to bring the fire under control.
The man whose flat was on fire was hauled out of the property and taken to hospital where he was treated for smoke inhalation. No one else was injured.
Firefighters, who finished work at the grade II-listed Belsize Fire Station in Lancaster Grove for the last time at 9.30am, said the man was lucky to be alive.
Belsize firefighter Kieran Cashin told the New Journal: “Anyone with any firefighting experience will tell you the more bodies they got the better. We had to plug into a dry riser. We had to get the gear upstairs. Belsize was the command pump. They are going to tell you we had two trucks there in the right amount of time. Well, this was a four pump fire and they needed four trucks. If they were out on another shout, what would have happened? They have reduced the cover in the area massively and they are going to fall over sooner or later. People are going to die and it's all over a budgetary constraint from a Mayor who is more interested in fireworks at New Year or bicycles.”
An hour and a half after the fire was brought under control, firefighters were back at Belsize to say farewell to the station that is due to be sold off.
Crews from West Hampstead turned up at the early-morning protest to support their colleagues along with retired firefighters who used to work at the 99-year-old station.
Around 20 members of the Labour Party came to wave them off and pose for photographs with placards. Labour London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore and Cllr Abdul Hai stood on a wall and made speeches about how the cuts were putting lives in danger.
Staff, who are being redistributed to stations across London, were in tears inside the station as they performed a private fire brigade leaving ritual. Management had not allowed them to do it outside in front of photographers, firefighters said.
The cuts follow a £27million annual cut to the London Fire Brigade from Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
A London Fire Brigade spokesman said police were helping to investigate the cause of the fire, adding: “If the fire had occurred after today’s station closures we would still have had the resources to deal with it quickly. The changes being put in place have been carefully planned.”
