Deliberate fire in high rise building

Firefighters were called to a deliberate fire in a bin chute at a block of flats in Southend earlier today.

Crews were called to Whittingham Avenue in Southend this afternoon to reports of a fire in an 11 floor block of flats.

On arrival, crews reported that a fire in a bin chute was affecting floors 5 to 10 and worked to extinguish the fire by 3:07pm.

Station Manager Scott Meetings said: “Crews acted quickly to contain and extinguish this fire and we implemented full high rise procedures as a precautionary measure.”

A fire investigation was carried out to determine the cause of the fire and it was found to have been started deliberately.

Could you be an on-call firefighter?

Firefighters attending this incident from Hawkwell, Rochford and Shoeburyness are on-call firefighters who all live or work within 5 minutes of an on-call fire station.

If you live or work within 5 minutes of an on-call fire station, you could be an on-call firefighter.

Find out more about the role at essex-fire.gov.uk/on-call