Gloucester Jewson fire: 40 firefighters tackle blaze at store

Crew members from Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service (GFRS) were called to a Jewson store in Gloucester on Monday morning (November 20) after a fire broke out^[1]. At around 8am, a report was made after smoke was spotted issuing from the building on Woodrow Way, near the Cole Avenue traffic lights.

For several hours, members of GFRS^[2] tackled the fire with the help of an aerial appliance and ten pumps, and eventually left the scene at around midday. Speaking to GloucestershireLive, Simon Robson of GFRS said that 40 firefighters were deployed to the scene, with the first to respond coming from the nearby Gloucester South station.

Mr Robson said: “At approximately 8.15 this morning, we got a call in our control room for smoke issuing from the Jewson building. With our Gloucester South station being based so close, they made a very quick attendance and we deployed crews in breathing apparatus very quickly into the scene and they started to tackle a fire which had developed above the suspended ceiling in the premises,”

Mr Robson continued: “This then travelled along the suspended ceiling in the void and set fire to roof timbers further down the building, which then led to smoke issuing at quite some volume at the rear of the property. So, at this point, we made pumps up to four and then later made the pumps up to ten and also got an aerial appliance.

“Then, it was just a case of getting further breathing apparatus crews into the property to deal with the fire, expose the ceiling joists and basically douse it that way. We’ve been on the scene basically from that time until now.

“The fire is fully extinguished now and the crews are just packing up and getting ready to redeploy back to their respective stations,” Mr Robson concluded.

GFRS first made residents aware of its attendance at the scene at around 9:39am this morning, asking motorists to take alternative routes if they were planning on passing through the area. At the same time, GFRS said that eight pumps and one aerial appliance were being used to tackle the flames.

Click here^[5] for more Gloucester news.

References

1. ^{^} fire broke out (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
2. ^{^} GFRS (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
3. ^{^} Woman in critical condition after ‘suspicious’ flats fire in Cheltenham (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
4. ^{^} Massive Tesco lorry gets stuck in tiny West Country village (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
5. ^{^} Click here (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)