Bow fire: Homes 'severely damaged' in east London blaze

Several homes person been "severely damaged" successful a blaze astatine a gathering successful eastbound London, firefighters person said.

Flames took clasp astatine the property, consisting of flats and a concern centre, connected Fairfield Road, Bow, astatine 18:04 BST connected Friday.

Crews spent astir 3 hours tackling the occurrence which destroyed flats connected the 5th and sixth floors.

London Fire Brigade (LFB) said 15 radical were removed from the gathering but cipher was reported injured.

One nonmigratory told the PA Media quality bureau the occurrence alarm did not dependable during the fire. This assertion has yet to beryllium confirmed.

The resident, who gave his sanction arsenic Drew, said: "The flats astatine the apical are 2 floors, I saw radical done the windows arsenic the occurrence was going on.

"The occurrence alarm wasn't going off, they had perfectly nary idea.

"The archetypal happening I did was telephone the occurrence service, past I ran downstairs to marque definite that the gathering was evacuated and told the occurrence warden the flats hadn't been evacuated.

"It was rather wide the occurrence was coming from the roof, it wasn't coming from the flats.

"I ran backmost upstairs and grabbed my container past ran down my corridor and banged connected the doors shouting 'fire'."

At the tallness of the fire, 123 calls were made to the brigade's 999 power centre alerting them to the blaze.

Fifteen occurrence engines and 100 firefighters were despatched to the scene.

Thick achromatic fume could beryllium seen billowing into the aerial arsenic crews arrived connected the scene.

Affected residents were told they mightiness not beryllium allowed backmost into the gathering until Sunday.

Two of the Brigade's 32m (104ft) turntable ladders were deployed arsenic h2o towers to tackle the flames from height, the occurrence brigade said successful a statement.

Crews from Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Homerton, Shadwell, Islington, Plaistow, Shoreditch, Lewisham and surrounding occurrence stations were called successful to help.

The brigade said the origin of the occurrence was present nether investigation.