A blaze which ripped through several gardens before spreading to and destroying a house in Ryde on Thursday afternoon is thought to have been caused by sunlight shining on a glass bottle in a hedge.
Firefighters from across the Island were called to Southfield Gardens in Haylands at around 15:15 when a fire suddenly broke out, first spreading to a hedgerow and fencing before engulfing sheds and eventually a semi-detached house.
5 appliances from Ryde, Newport and Sandown, an aerial ladder platform and the Incident Command Unit were all mobilised to the incident, with crews from Shanklin and Bembridge later called in to relieve the first crews on scene. 2 water carriers from Ventnor and Freshwater were also utilised to assist with the supply of water.
The occupiers of the property have told Island Echo that a fire investigation has deemed the likely cause of the blaze to be a glass bottle located in a hedge at the rear of the property. Glass can magnify the sun and cause a fire.
Thursday was one of the hottest days of the year so far with temperatures reaching around 23c in Ryde, with plenty of direct sunlight on the south-facing garden.
The family involved say they are very thankful to everyone for everything they have done following this accident.
A GoFundMe page has been established to help those affected by the fire with over £1,700 raised to date. You can donate online at https://www.gofundme.com/f/6nyyn-to-help-a-family until 13:00 today.
Too many morons around see a hedge and just see it as somewhere to throw their rubbish.
If you have an ugly concrete garden and next door is a wildlife friendly garden with hedges and shrubs, so helping our environment, the ignorant types of people seem to think the ugly concrete garden is “tidy” and the real garden is a “mess” and somewhere to deposit their rubbish,
I am so fed up with having to retrieve empty bottles from my small garden, usually alcohol bottles, lost count of the number of empty Vodka bottles I’ve had to put in the recycling bin, so disgusting, and I just hope that anyone looking in my bin do not think it is I who drinks the stuff.
If it really was an empty bottle that started this awful fire. It sounds like they are not 100% sure.
I feel so sorry for the people who have been affected by this through no fault of their own.
Agree with you totally, Haylands is littered with discarded alcoholic bottles / cans and plastic bottles. Just wish the Police would do something about it.
As most people are home now, how could a fire not started by accelerants, only a smouldering hedge, ever get so large unnoticed to grow so large as to burn down an old style solid brick house?
Seems difficult to imagine, with it being daytime, when most are home, and with enough fire crews one would imagine to deal with a huge blaze not just a hedge and shed.
Many hedges will have discarded bottles in them, and whislt warm and dry the UK is hardly the African Savana yet, seems to me most unlikely cause of such, and, even if so, still doesn’t answer my query as to why it was not spotted and dealt with more effectively.
Perhaps someone could enlighten?
How can you be sure the occupants aren’t NHS staff, keyworkers or such?
Also if you care to read the gov. guide lines it states you are allowed out for limited purposes.
If the fire service say, the likely cause of the fire is a discarded bottle, I see no reason why we shouldn’t believe them, given their expertise which I’m sure far exceeds “Jo public’s” experience of fires.
Fires given the right conditions can spread far quicker than one would imagine, just ask a fire fighter.
Jill I challenge YOU to go into your garden with any bottle you like to choose and start of fire using dried leaves from a hedge or any other natural dried vegetation.
Go on, try it, and I bet you wont be able to.
Even harder to start it by accident from a bottle.
More to this than for whatever reason we are being informed imo.
No way am I attempting to light a fire in my garden!!!!!
Given the name “Furloughed Frank,” I would presume you’re not a firefighter so I personally would believe the experts and their opinion of how the fire started over yours. What I do know, however, is that the occupants of the affected house are keyworkers, not that it is any of your business.