"Please, please help me" frantic mum's plea after blaze broke out in flats (From Harrow Times)
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London Fire Brigade investigate cause of fire in block of flats in Harrow View
9:25am Wednesday 20th March 2013 in News By Jaber Mohamed
Firefighters at the scene in Harrow View
A frantic mum ran into a shop to plead for help when a blaze broke out in her block of flats.
The London Fire Brigade were called to Harrow View at around 4.30pm following reports of a fire in a ground floor flat yesterday afternoon.
A mother and her child who were in the flat above realised there was smoke coming from the floor below and ran to the Niru off licence on the corner of Headstone Drive and Harrow View to ask for help.
The shopkeeper, who did not wish to be named, called the fire brigade when the woman rushed in.
She said: “The lady sounded desperate and said ‘please, please help me’.
“She couldn’t speak English well and I was just in the middle of serving someone so I just dialled the number and gave the phone to a customer and asked him to help her.
“And after ten minutes we heard the sirens.”
Three fire engines with 14 crew members attended the scene and soon brought the blaze under control.
Nobody was hurt as the building was quickly evacuated and the people who live in the flat where the fire broke out were not home at the time.
A man who lives in the same block where the blaze occurred escaped harm because he went to check his office.
He did not want to be named but said: “I work just across the road and though it was my day off, I just popped over the road to check into the office for ten minutes and when I came back there were flashing lights everywhere.
“It was pretty scary. The fire itself wasn’t too big but there was a lot of smoke and it was getting into the other flats.
“The people who live in the flat weren’t in and the mother and her kid said she saw them ten minutes before the fire.”
Residents were held outside the building until the smoke was cleared and the fire fighters had made sure it was safe for them to return to their homes.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
