Fire erupts in Bullring shopping centre and damages thousands of pounds worth of jewellery

Yesterday afternoon, a fire broke out in the Bullring causing the shopping centre to be evacuated temporarily.

It is believed that the bins in the back of the building caught fire which then spread into the storeroom of Goldsmiths jewellers, consequently causing damage to thousands of pounds worth of jewellery stored inside.

The Bullring’s automatic sprinklers are activated when they detected smoke and the West Midlands Fire Service, who are fully equipped and trained specifically for fires in the Bullring, were called to the scene. One fireman confirmed that yesterday’s actions were standard procedure.

Emergency services were called to the scene

The Bullring sent out a statement shortly after, reading: “We can confirm that the fire services attended a small fire in one of the retailers in the centre this afternoon.”

Following the incident just after 2pm, a statement was issued: “As a precaution, the centre was partially evacuated. The centre is now fully open and trading as normal.”

However, according to some witnesses, many were unaware of what was going on. One woman, Jo Coggins who works in Waitrose in the Bullring, said “I heard the tannoy but didn’t know what was happening. We were sent down the stairs by the link street.” Another witness, Jake Coxhead, said it took the security team around 5 minutes to actually evacuate people from the top floor. He said: “I was really shocked, initially I was concerned as I thought something serious was happening.”

But don’t worry, our favourite stores were saved.