Its horrendous, almost like a fire you would expect in a third world country. They said the building was refurbished a while back and they have used cladding on the exterior to make it more friendly on the eye, but this cladding is notoriously flammable. Add to that it was a warm night, people would have had their windows open which will aide the spread of fire.
As for the response from the fire brigade, to put it into context. Merseyside Fire Brigade used to have 43 fire engines available across the whole of Merseyside. Government cuts and more government cuts have reduced to that figure to 20 at best (during the day). After 8pm that goes down again to around 15 when they recall personnel from home back to work.
When they had a fire at that scrap yard down at the docks a few months back, they had a fire in that house on Mather Avenue where the old couple had hoarded all sorts. Such was the lack of fire engines that they had to send a specialist one from Manchester because everything else was tied up down at the docks.
These cuts are a ticking clock.
