A man was seening jumping from a burning flat with a five-month-old baby in his boxer shorts.
Greater Manchester Police together with the fire service and paramedics are at the scene of a house fire in Heywood, near Rochdale, on Thursday afternoon. Emergency services were scrambled after reports of a serious blaze and now it appears that the roof of a block of flats has caved in.
Vehicles are gathered on Lochawe Close in Heywood, which runs off Argyle Street. Police officers have been pictured stood guard on surrounding streets, with ambulances and fire engines parked up on pavements in the area with a family including a five-month-old child managing to escape.
Images from the scene show multiple Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service engines present, with hose reels running out from the back of them. Firefighters wearing breathing equipment have also been pictured at the scene.
And a resident told the Manchester Evening News that she saw a man tuck a baby into his boxer shorts and leap from a burning first floor flat onto the ground. A smashed window can be seen at the building which the man is understood to have broken and jumped from. “He jumped out with his baby and his partner,” she said. “They were conscious. They went into somebody’s house. Nobody knows what started (the fire). The roof has completely fallen through.”
While another local, Liam Hughes, 35, said: “I was in the shops and saw the smoke and ran up there, banging on the windows to get everyone out. If I had not gone there it could have been a lot worse. None of them had any clothes on.” He said the family got out and ‘seemed ok’.
Darnhill Library and Community Cafe has arranged to open up to help residents who can’t access their homes. It’s based on Darnhill Parade. Two adults and a child were taken to hospital for treatment and checks but their conditions are not thought to be serious, said the North West Ambulance Service.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service told The Mirror: “At just before 2.55pm on Thursday (March 13) GMFRS were called to a fire involving four maisonette flats on Lochawe Close, Heywood. A number of fire engines and special appliances were quickly mobilised to the scene with surrounding properties evacuated.
“Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used jets to extinguish the fire and are dampening down any remaining hot spots. Crews remain in attendance alongside Greater Manchester Police and North West Ambulance Service.”
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