East Sussex village residents report hearing ‘explosions’: fire crews at agricultural building in East Hoathly

ESFRS said it was called to the incident at Ailies Lane at 11.54pm.

An ESFRS spokesperson said: “Initially, four appliances were mobilised to the incident and at 00:26 the incident was escalated to six appliances, with the fire control room receiving more than 60 repeat calls from the public informing them of the fire.

“Ground monitors have been set up by firefighters to tackle the fire and deliver high-volume water efficiently.”

Residents in the area commented on ESFRS’s Facebook page as the fire service tackled the blaze. They reported hearing ‘multiple bangs’ and ‘explosions’ and seeing ‘orange flashes’ while some said they felt their homes shake.

AA Traffic News at www.theaa.com/route-planner/traffic-news also reported at 12.17am: “Road closed due to building fire at three barns on Ailies Lane both ways from Whitesmith Lane to Graywood Lane. Around midnight.”

A later ESFRS update said: “At 12.39 fire service personnel were evacuated to 200 metres from the site of the fire, due to the explosion of cylinders, and the Incident Command Unit is in attendance.”

A 2.45am on Wednesday said: “Following a further investigation by six firefighters an informative has been received that three barns have been extensively destroyed by fire from exploding cylinders. The incident has now been left as a controlled burn, which will be monitored by one remaining crew at the scene overnight, outside the 200m exclusion zone. The incident has now been scaled back to four appliances. All persons have been accounted for.”

ESFRS announced later on Facebook: “As of 03:10 the East Hoathly incident has now been scaled back to four appliances. One crew will remain at the scene overnight. The public are urged to avoid the area while emergency services continue their work.”

A full update appeared on the ESFRS website at about 10am, saying that there were now two fire engines and two fire officers at the scene.

The message continued: “Cylinders have cooled and crews are turning over and damping down to ensure pockets of fire are fully out and making the area safe. A fire investigation will take place in the coming days to understand the cause of the fire and gain any learning for the future. Police and ambulance were also in attendance due to the scale of the incident.

“We’d like to thank our crews for their hard work throughout the night and members of the public for listening to our advice to stay away from the scene, so that our firefighters could tackle the incident and keep everyone safe.”

Darren Sampson, group manager, ESFRS, posted a video to Facebook that showed some of the damage at the site. He said: “While the crews were doing early firefighting, with good training they identified and reacted to risk, which was the cylinders involved."

Darren explained that the cylinders created the ‘incident of interest’ because of the ‘large explosions heard overnight’. He continued: “But I can reassure everyone that all crews and members of the public were withdrawn to behind a cordon of safety.”

Darren added that the cylinders were now ‘sufficiently cool’. Visit www.facebook.com/reel/1469888104603186.