Grim Search Continues For Missing Firefighters

Specialist search teams are still combing the wreckage of a warehouse destroyed in a fatal fire at the weekend for three of their colleagues missing, believed killed.

On Friday evening, four firefighters who were among the first attendance battling a massive warehouse blaze entered the burning building to rescue any immigrant workers who may have been sleeping inside.

After the roof collapsed, one firefighter died and the other three are now presumed dead after the blaze.

Residents living near the vegetable packing warehouse in Atherstone on Stour, Warwickshire, have described how hundreds of Eastern European workers travel to the warehouse before dawn each day.

Many arrive by coach or minibus from Coventry and Warwick to pack vegetables for supermarkets.

No employment breaches have been recorded against the owner of the warehouse, the Wealmoor Group, which acquired the site in July.

But there were fears that some of the workers, unable to get home from the site, may have been staying overnight in the former aircraft hangar when tragedy struck on Friday evening.

This prompted the firemen to enter the building, despite the flames that tore through the vast building - unfortunately causing the roof to collapse as steel girders gave way in the heat.

Police are treating the blaze as suspicious and fire bosses will investigate the tactics used by fire crews at the scene, they confirmed.

(BMcC)