VIDEO: Neighbours speak out over Mereside fire

Firefighters are tackling a severe blaze at a family home in Mereside.
Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)
Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)

Five fire engines from Blackpool, South Shore, Bispham, and St Annes were called to the mid-terrace house at Rusland Avenue in Mereside at around 12.05pm.

Neighbour Caroline Lea, 34, said: “It was horrendous. It was popping everywhere and blowing up all over the place. The house is just gone. I’ve never seen anything so terrible in my life.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I heard my neighbour screaming and I ran to the door. She was just in bits. The house next door was on fire and within five minutes it had taken hold. It sounded like something was exploding inside. The whole roof was on fire. It’s been absolutely obliterated.

Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)
Teams of firefighters at Rusland Avenue. Pic: Mathew Hewitt-Osborne (Facebook)

“The people who live there are just a normal family - they’ve got kids and they’re going to have to come home from school to that.

Jack Kneale, 18. who lives two doors down, said: “I was having a long lie-in and I woke up to a woman screaming outside. I went outside and the house was on fire. The windows were exploding, the door was banging because it was open and flames were pouring out the windows.”

Lancashire Fire and Rescue spokesman Richard Edney said firefighters wearing breathing masks searched inside the property following fears somebody might have been inside.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Everybody has since been accounted for and nobody has been injured, he said, although he described the house as being ‘well alight’.

Fire at Rusland Avenue (photo by Jack Kneale)Fire at Rusland Avenue (photo by Jack Kneale)
Fire at Rusland Avenue (photo by Jack Kneale)

He said: “We are still fighting the fire, and we are focusing on the roof space to stop it spreading.”

Pictures taken at the scene show thick smoke coming from the house, while police say windows there have been ‘blown out’.

The family were too distressed to speak.

More to follow.