The incident is now being handed over to the city council for further investigation
Fire appliances attending an incident at Spencer House in Redcliffe, Bristol, on Sunday evening, August 16(Image: Bristol Post submitted)
Emergency services from across Bristol rushed to a large tower block near the city centre this evening, to reports of a fire.
Fire crews from several fire stations, along with police, attended and found a fire in the bin chute at Spencer House in Redcliffe.
A large number of fire appliances attended as is policy when it comes to fires involving Bristol’s tall buildings, but thankfully, the fire was quickly under control and extinguished with no injuries and no need to evacuate the residents.
Spencer House is one of Bristol’s largest tower blocks, stretching from Clarence Road alongside the New Cut River Avon to Somerset Square, with 88 flats in its 11 storeys.
A spokesperson for Avon Fire and Rescue Service said: “We were able to extinguish the fire reasonably quickly, and then made sure the smoke cleared from the building using natural ventilation – basically we opened all the windows in the areas affected.
“We are recording this as deliberate ignition – someone has thrown something on fire down the chute from an upper floor and it has set everything else in there on fire,” he added.
“We will be passing that over to Bristol City Council, which manages the block, and they will have their own procedures to go through now to ascertain who has done this and what action can be taken,” he added.
The fire came as Avon Fire and Rescue Service – along with fire services across the West Country – are dealing with a high number of call-outs to attend wildfires and grassfires on open spaces around the West of England, as fire is easily spreading on the tinder-dry land.