A fire that triggered the closure of one of Birmingham’s busiest roads has led police to a cannabis factory.Firefighters were called to the blaze in a parade of shops in South Yardley, South Birmingham on Monday.
The A45 was closed to allow firefighters to use a hydraulic platform.
Police found 75 cannabis plants in one of the residential properties above the shops. No arrests have yet been made.
The cause of the blaze remains unclear.
More than 1,000 students were evacuated from an eight-storey apartment building after a chip pan sparked a blaze two days ago.
No one was injured in the fire, which caused considerable damage to the kitchen and flat, but fortunately didn’t spread to other flats.
Firefighters from Moss Side, Manchester Central and Salford stations evacuated 1,020 students and staff.
The fire broke out in a shared kitchen on the second floor.
“One of the students had put a chip pan on and left it unattended,” said Watch Manager Paul Hesford. “He’d gone out and forgotten about it. There were two others in the flat at the time – a man and a woman – and when the alarms sounded the man went to open the kitchen door and saw the fire.
“When we arrived staff were evacuating the students. One of the difficulties for us was that there were a lot of people coming out of the building but they did a really good job in getting everybody out.
“We do tend to get quite a few fires involving students and cooking so we’d advise people not to use chip pans and to make sure they have working smoke alarms that they check regularly. Thankfully there weren’t any injuries.”
A fire in a stack of hay bales in a Hungerford field caused long delays on the A36 two nights ago.
A mechanical digger was used to try to pull the tightly stacked bale apart so the fire service could extinguish hot spots in the middle.
Four fire appliances from Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service attended the fire, which started shortly after midnight.
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