Warehouse inferno (From Hillingdon Times)

Warehouse inferno

1:46am Thursday 14th August 2003

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MORE than 100 firefighters tackled a blazing inferno at a warehouse in South Ruislip, battling for more than seven hours to get it under control.

The flames, which were up to 30 feet high, completely gutted the building in Stonefield Way Industrial Estate in the early hours last Friday.

Dave Peters, 35, of Braintree Road, South Ruislip, was woken by the sound of huge explosions at around 12.30am.

He said: "I thought a plane had crashed into the BP garage in Victoria Road. It sounded that close.

"I got up and went to the window and could just see the orange sky and plumes of black smoke everywhere.

"It looked as though it was just behind the houses but it was actually more than half a mile away."

Mr Peters walked up to the scene of the fire with his wife and said he could not believe what he saw.

He said: "It was like a scene from a disaster movie.

"There must have been about four or five hundred people standing around watching. Some people were still in their nightclothes.

"There was really back smoke everywhere and fireballs kept going up in the air.

"The noise was like the constant sound of a kettle boiling, and in amongst that were loads of explosions."

He added: "You could see the flames in the sky well above all the other warehouses. We watched for about an hour, I have never seen anything like it."

The gutted building was shared by perfume company, House of Eden West, and skateboard distributors, Pristine.

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade said: "The brigade was called shortly before 11.30pm and, at its height, an area bigger than two football pitches was on fire.

"The whole of the warehouse has been gutted by the fire and a number of gas cylinders were involved."

The spokesman said acetylene gas cylinders are very volitile when they overheat, and as a result crews had to fight the fire from a safe distance.

A 200 metre exlusion zone was set up around the scene after the fire was out to wait for the gas cylinders to cool.

Roads were closed off until noon on Friday while relief fire crews dampened down the cylinders.

Much of the industrial estate remained closed until Saturday to allow fire officers to make sure it was safe for people to return.

A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said: "We recieved 81 duplicate calls about the fire. It is usually very quiet at 11.30pm, so everyone could hear the sound of the explosions very well."

She added: "We have not received the full report of the incident yet, but it is currently being investigated."

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