Firefighters' plea after two chimney fires in two days in Newbury
One of the chimney fires forced the closure of Kings Road, adjacent to Sainsbury’s, whilst specialist equipment was brought in.
Firefighters brought in a hydraulic platform to tackle the fire, at a terraced house in Kings Road yesterday (Wednesday) morning.
According to Bob Mitchell, watch manager of Red Watch at Newbury Fire Station, one pump from Newbury Fire Station and a hydraulic platform from Basingstoke Fire Station were called at 11.30am to the blaze, confined to the chimney flue.
No-one was hurt.
Thames Valley Police closed the road for a brief period, to enable the fire service to manoeuvre the hydraulic platform into place.
The cause was put down to a build up of debris in the flue and firefighters left the scene at 1.15pm.
Newbury firefighters were also called to a chimney fire in Newport Road on Tuesday night.
According to Richard Young, the watch manager of Green Watch at Newbury Fire Station, one pump was called at 10pm to a semi-detached house.
The fire was contained to the chimney and firefighters used rods to extinguish the blaze.
“It caused quite a bit of smoke in the immediate area,” said Mr Young.
There was no damage to the property and no-one was hurt.
The cause was put down to a build up of soot.
Firefighters left the scene after about 45 minutes and have since issued a reminder to get chimneys swept regularly and at least twice a year.