![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786653494_43_.jpeg\")
\n West Midlands Fire Service<\/p>\n
HUGE FIRES HAVE caused \u201capocalyptic scenes\u201d in England\u2019s West Midlands, forcing some people to flee after blazes started tearing through homes on the UK\u2019s hottest day of the year.<\/p>\n
West Midlands Fire Service said it was facing \u201cextreme levels of demand\u201d due to a fire in Stourbridge on Thursday \u2013 with two casualties affected by heat and smoke.<\/p>\n
The fire service said six houses were affected by the blaze and the incident is estimated to involve about 40 acres of land, including a wood.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the region, smoke from nearby wildfires forced the closure of the M6 northbound between junctions five and six \u2013 causing more than two hours of delays.<\/p>\n
Explaining the closure, National Highways West Midlands said in a statement: \u201cThe fire keeps igniting. Fire commander at the scene not happy for M6 to be reopened until fire fully extinguished.\u201d<\/p>\n
The road later reopened, but motorists continued to face six miles of congestion.<\/p>\n
West Midlands mayor Richard Parker described the \u201cmultiple fires across our region\u201d as an \u201cextremely worrying and fast moving situation\u201d.<\/p>\n
In nearby Warwickshire, the county\u2019s fire and rescue service said they are responding to a \u201clarge fire\u201d in Salford Priors, Stratford-Upon-Avon, which has been declared a major incident.<\/p>\n
Police, fire crews and ambulances are at the scene of the wildfire.<\/p>\n
\n West Midlands Fire Service<\/p>\n
West Midlands Fire Service\n<\/p>\n
The multiple fires in the West Midlands follow scorching temperatures across the region and other parts of the UK \u2013 with temperatures in Stourbridge sitting at 33C at 7.30pm, according to the Met Office\u2019s forecast.<\/p>\n
In Stourbridge, Wollaston & Stourbridge Town councillor Andrew Southall said care home residents have been evacuated alongside others as a result of the fire near Stourbridge golf course.<\/p>\n
About 60 firefighters attended the scene after being alerted to the blaze at about 1.30pm.<\/p>\n
Footage circulating on social media showed multiple buildings on fire and huge plumes of smoke coming from a nearby field.<\/p>\n
The fire service said flames were spreading \u201cacross roads in places\u201d, with people urged to stay indoors.<\/p>\n
Drone footage published by the force showed a heat map of flames threatening to engulf homes in the area as smoke billowed across the town.<\/p>\n
Stourbridge town hall has been set up as a rescue centre for people who have had to flee their homes.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media, the fire service said: \u201cWe are currently facing extreme levels of demand as a service, and need your immediate help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWherever you are in the West Midlands, please do whatever you can to stay safe and minimise the risk of outdoor fires.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are directly affected by an ongoing fire, please do not risk tackling it yourself.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet to a safe place and call 999.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do our very best to get help to you as soon as we can.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you must drive, take extra care if you are driving, avoid areas of dense smoke, and please don\u2019t head to areas where fires are taking place to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Andrew Tromans, who represents Wollaston and Stourbridge Town on Dudley Borough Council, described the scene of the fire in Stourbridge as \u201capocalyptic\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Facebook, he said: \u201cThe apocalyptic scenes in Norton and across Stourbridge are sadly just a taste of what is to come if we don\u2019t act.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt is my view, and it has been for a while, that Dudley councillors must have an emergency meeting about we protect our borough from the impacts of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUGE FIRES HAVE caused \u201capocalyptic scenes\u201d in England\u2019s West Midlands, forcing some people to flee after blazes started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,442,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,37752,7,8,268622,65787,268623,4239],"class_list":["post-635639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-climate-change","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-stourbridge","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-uk-heatwave","tag-west-midlands","tag-west-midlands-fire-service","tag-wildfires"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}