Smoke alarm warning after blaze at Rossendale home (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Smoke alarm warning after blaze at Rossendale home

11:00am Sunday 29th January 2012 in Waterfoot By Peter Magill, Chief reporter

A FIRE chief has repeated appeals for smoke alarms to be fitted to all East Lancashire homes after a wood stove blaze wrecked a property in Rossendale.

Crew manager Rob Hartley, of Rawtenstall station, said the consequences of the fire, at a terraced house in Burnley Road East, Whitewell Bottom, could have been catastrophic.

Heat from a wood stove ignited kindling, stored above the heater, and the flames spread throughout the open-plan property.

Mr Hartley said that fortunately the householder, a man in his 50s, was in The Roebuck pub nearby at the time.

But he added: “He didn’t have any smoke alarms so if he had been asleep in the property at the time then there could have been serious problems.”

The fire, reported just after 11pm on Friday, comes just a week after the Lancashire brigade launched a campaign offering free smoke alarms to all county households.

Smoke detectors are still available from stations across Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale, Mr Hartley confirmed, or by calling freephone 0800 169 1125.

Damage to the house was so severe that it was no longer habitable, said Mr Hartley, with the property severely affected by heat and smoke.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus ensured that no was inside the property and specialist ventilation equipment was used to disperse smoke, which had spread to at least one neighbouring property.

The householder, who is understood to have been refurbishing the house, refused to comment the following day.