Firefighters return home after tragic inferno search

Nov 8 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

A TEAM of firefighters from Mer- seyside and Cheshire returned home yesterday after taking part in the search for three missing colleagues in the devastating Warwickshire warehouse blaze.

Dan Stephens, area manager for Merseyside’s fire stations, led the ten-strong team which travelled to the West Midlands late on Monday evening to try to find the missing firefighters.

They worked through the night in the ruins of the warehouse in Atherstone on Stour, during which time they located the body of one of the missing firefighters, and found equipment which led to the discovery of the remaining two.

Mr Stephens last night spoke of a “difficult and demanding operation”, particularly he said, as the job of the specialist urban search and rescue team was usually to pull survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings, rather than - as in this case - search for bodies.

He said: “Our brief was to support Warwickshire fire and rescue service in locating the missing firefighters and assisting with their retrieval.

“It was physically arduous for the crew because the ferocity of the fire burnt away the mezzanine floor, which we had to rebuild to make it safe for scenes of crime officers.

“Our job is normally to look for people who are believed to be trapped under the rubble but still alive, but we can equally be deployed to conduct this type of search.

“It was a thoroughly unpleasant task, but it’s even more distressing when it’s your own colleagues involved.

“The whole operation was conducted very professionally. I’m just pleased we were able to make a contribution.”

Merseyside and Cheshire is one of 19 specialist urban search and rescue teams around the country, who can be deployed anywhere they are needed.

They were set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to help find people trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

A total of four firefighters died in the Warwickshire warehouse blaze.

The bodies of Ashley Stephens, 20, Darren Yates-Badley, 24, and John Averis, 27, were retrieved from the plant on Tuesday night following a five-day search operation.

Their colleague Ian Reid, 44, was rescued from the fire on Friday but died later in hospital.

The search for the missing men involved 200 people at its height.

A police investigation is now under way and the blaze at the vegetable packing warehouse continues to be treated as suspicious.

alanweston