8 December 2008

Firefighters rescued four adults and a 10-week-old baby from a fire in Milton Keynes on Friday night.

Crews from Broughton, Great Holm and Newport Pagnell were called to a two-storey block of six flats in Mullen Avenue, Downs Barn, at 10.02pm.

The fire started after a water leak in one of the flats caused an explosion in an electrical cupboard. Smoke in the corridors blocked the main escape route for most of the occupants of the three upstairs flats.

It was so thick that firefighters wearing breathing apparatus had to use a thermal imaging camera to carry out their search.

Watch Manager Frazer Lewis from Great Holm Fire Station, who was the incident commander, said: "Our main problem in the early stages was trying to ascertain how many people were trapped and where they were.

"All four people from the ground floor flats and one person from the first floor flats had managed to get out, but there were still five people unaccounted for."

Firefighters led one woman to safety down the stairs and rescued three women and the baby girl using ladders from windows.

They put out the fire using a dry powder extinguisher and cleared the smoke with a fan.

Three people were taken to hospital as a precaution after breathing in smoke. Firefighters remained at the scene for two and a half hours and helped some of the occupants settle back into their flats after carrying out fire safety checks and fitting smoke alarms.

Firefighters and control room staff have been commended for the success of the rescue operation by Area Manager Roy Harold of Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.

He said: "As a result of the excellent liaison between the control room and the crews at the scene, we were able to locate and rescue everyone very quickly. Staff in the control room provided fire survival advice to two of the occupants while they were waiting to be rescued by the crews at the scene."