Thursday 24 June
06.16 Tesco Express, Whiteladies Road, Bristol
Firefighters spent
considerable time digging out sections of a shop roof after fire
broke out in the store.
The alarm was
raised before the shop was open for business and a small number of
staff who had arrived for work managed to get out of the building
before crews arrived on the scene.
It appears the
fire broke out in an office room at the rear of 
the store and when crews arrived on the scene they discovered the
fire had also spread to the space between the ceiling and roof.
Six firefighters
wearing breathing apparatus were initially sent in to the building
and tackled the fire using a high pressure hose reel. However, as
the fire was also in the roof void, they were withdrawn from the
building as crews set to work on cutting away sections of the
roof.
AF&RS’s Urban
Search and Rescue Team, which carry specialist cutting equipment,
were also deployed to the incident to help cut through the thick
sections of roof and expose the hot spots.
Residents of
nearby flats were evacuated as a precaution during the
incident.
The fire, which
badly damaged the store, is thought to have been caused by an
electrical fault.
