Building completely destroyed after major fire tears through it in town centre

A mobility business owner says his stock has been seriously damaged or destroyed after the shop caught alight.

Firefighters were called to the fire in West Avenue in Clacton, Essex, shortly after midnight this morning.

Fire crews from seven stations were called in to tackle the blaze, managing to keep it contained to two shops and stop it spreading to flats and other neighbouring buildings.

Easy Mobility Services is a long-established business in the town which was seriously damaged by the blaze.

Managing director Paul Vicary said he believed the fire started in a neighbouring property and spread across the top of his shop, causing it to collapse inside.

He told Metro he hasn’t been able to get inside the shop yet, but believes it will need to be fully rebuilt.

Worse, he says, is the impact of the fire on his customers, who rely on mobility aids to get around.

‘We have a lot of people who depend on our products, we had stock ready to deliver today,’ Paul told Metro.

‘There’s a lot of water and smoke damage, there’s a lot of stock that’s very soggy.

‘We have to regroup, we’ve redirected our phones to our Colchester branch, and now we’ve got to find new accommodation until we know what’s going on.

‘We’re hoping to find another store quickly, hopefully within the week, thankfully in this day and age things can be plugged in and everything can be good to go in five minutes.’

Paul said he had already received calls from local people offering their help, which he described as ‘quite heartwarming’. His staff at the Clacton branch will be redeployed to another of their four branches until a new temporary shop can be found.

He added: ‘No-one’s been hurt which is the most important thing, and the fire service did an amazing job, the pictures I saw made it look like a towering inferno, and they managed to contain it.’

Several families were forced to leave their homes and take refuge in a nearby hotel after the blaze took hold.

Three roads were closed and around 70 locals were evacuated from their homes, the BBC reports, with residents taking refuge in a nearby Premier Inn.

Essex County Fire & Rescue says the fire had been extinguished by about 7am on Monday, but crews will remain at the scene to dampen down any hotspots.

Incident commander Nick Singleton said: ‘I’d like to say a big thank you to the crews who worked extremely hard to stop the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.

‘As well as a thank you to our emergency services partners for their help, the Premier Inn for providing a refuge centre and local residents for being patient with us while we deal with the incident.

‘A fire investigation will be carried out to determine the cause of the fire when it is safe to do so.’

Residents were advised to keep all of their doors and windows shut due to the large amounts of smoke pouring from the building fire.

Jackson Road, Penfold Road and Agate Road were all closed while the fire service tackled the blaze, with road closures still in place later in the morning.

While there weren’t any injuries reported, Codgers of Clacton furniture shop was badly affected by the blaze, with only its metal support beams remaining.

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