The summary of the report in the Salford Online site is that nine people escaped the Monton Mill Gardens flat fire in Eccles
Nine residents were evacuated from their homes in the early hours after a fire in a block of flats in Eccles. Thankfully smoke alarms operated to give them an early warning, as black, acrid smoke started to fill the lobby of the three storey-building. Firefighters were called to Monton Mill Gardens at around 2.30am and on arrival found residents making their way from the building. Watch Manager Terry Hand said: "It was a significant fire in the lobby. Luckily everyone escaped unhurt but it could have been really serious.
"Someone woke up after they heard a loud bang and smoke alarms started sounding. That helped to alert residents. "It had the potential to be a much more serious incident, so it was fortunate there were smoke alarms fitted."
The fire is believed to have been caused by an short circuit in the electric intake box in the lobby of the ground floor. Hand added: "As firefighters carried out a search and fought the fire, the staircase became very smoke logged. The electric casing had created black, toxic smoke. "They worked very quickly to bring the fire under control and then ventilated the property rapidly which helped to limit the smoke damage caused."
Many thanks to Salford online, its an interesting story illustrating the potential of electricity intake equipment to create serious fires and underpins the guidance in ADB to enclose the equipment in fire resisting construction if it has to be in the staircase at all. But would the residents actually have been safer to stay in their flats until the incident had been dealt with? Was it the fire fighting operations that caused the staircase to be temporarily affected by smoke? Was the smoke ventilation manual or automatic? It sounds as though it worked well.
