More than 40 firefighters from both Hampshire and Royal Berkshire fire and rescue services worked into the night to stop a property fire in Woolton Hill near Newbury.
Crews were called at 8:10pm last night (05 May) when Hampshire Fire Control received numerous calls reporting two houses were involved in the blaze.
The incident was scaled up so that at its height there were ten fire engines in attendance when both of the semi-detached houses were fully alight.
There were fire engines from Berkshire, Kingsclere, Whitchurch, Andover, Sutton Scotney, Winchester and Tadley as well as the Aerial Ladder Platform (ALP), command support vehicles, the Environmental Protection Unit and water carriers.
Crews also had to deal with a running fuel fire which had entered the water drains and caused a number of manhole covers to explode.
Fortunately ambulance crews were only in attendance as a precaution with no casualties reported from the blaze which saw several properties evacuated. The homeowners of the unaffected houses in the road were able to return in the early hours of the morning.
The stop message came in at 00:55 when the incident was scaled down and a number of the crews were released. The two-storey properties were fully destroyed with two domestic storage tanks also affected in the blaze.
The fire was stopped using breathing apparatus, hose reels, jets, the ALP, Compressed Air Foam System and environmental protection equipment.
One relief crew from Alresford and then Overton attended overnight to monitor hotspots and check for any other signs of fire.
Hampshire Constabulary provided a sceneguard overnight with an investigation alongside the HFRS Fire Investigation team set to commence in the morning.
A multi-agency response was required to stop the fire from spreading further with Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, South Central Ambulance Service, Hampshire Constabulary, Thames Water and the electricity company working alongside Hampshire firefighters to resolve the incident.