Firefighters in rooftop rescue
Published: September 24, 2005
A MAN who leapt out of a window at his blazing flat was rescued from a roof by firefighters.
After the fire took hold in the middle of the night and blocked his way to the front door, the man was left with no option but to jump several feet from his first-floor window onto a roof below.
But he was then left stranded as fire crews raced to the scene to rescue him and control the blaze before it reached him.
They arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning and evacuated other residents in the flats, in Central Avenue, Wallington, before some of them had realised their homes were in danger.
The man, thought to be aged around 20, was reached with the help of a ladder while other firefighters from Croydon, Wallington and Purley brought the fire under control.
Neighbours in a flat next door saw the blaze and alerted the fire brigade.
One of them, who asked not to be named, said: “My flatmate was up late packing for her holidays. She saw the fire because the rest of us slept through it. It was lucky the fire crews stopped it spreading because his flat joins onto our property.
“The first I knew of it was at about 4.15am when I was woken up by the firefighters in the back garden who were evacuating us all.
“The flames were licking up the walls and the man next door was standing on the roof while firefighters tried to rescue him.”
DH Parker & Son, the butchers below the flat, own the property and were renting it to the man who was rescued.
Mr Parker said later: “I don’t really want to comment at the moment because the police are still investigating the cause. But I can say that no one was killed and the man they rescued is out of hospital now.”
Neighbour Gary Hearn, 48, believes lives could easily have been lost in the fire.
He said: “I was woken up by flashing lights outside and at first I thought it was my house. It’s lucky the fire didn’t spread because the gardens at the back are close together and if the grass had caught fire that would have been it.”
By the time the fire was extinguished, the walls inside and out-side the flat were pitch black. All the windows had smashed and a strong smell filled the street.
Glen Robinson, from Wallington fire station, said an investigation had been launched into the cause of the blaze.
He said: “The police and our fire investigation team attended the scene but we still can’t comment on the source of the fire.”
The man was treated for shock and smoke inhalation at Mayday University Hospital, in Thornton Heath, but released later in the day.
Police and forensic teams were at the scene later on Wednesday morning looking for clues as to how the fire began.
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