Manchester halls go up in flames after out of control pan fire

A fierce blaze broke out at a Manchester halls yesterday after a pan caught fire in a second floor student kitchen. 

Nearly a thousand panicked students were evacuated from Manchester student village, near Oxford Rd station, last night.

At 7.19pm fire services from Moss Side, Manchester Central and Salford were called to the blaze on Lower Chatham Street.

Between 800 and 1000 students were evacuated from an eight-story building after a fire in a second story shared kitchen.

On hearing the smoke alarm, one student found flames in the kitchen when they went to investigate.

The students immediately closed the kitchen door and called 999.

The cause of the fire was a pan that had been left unattended.

The fire caused extensive damage to the kitchen and the rest of the flat was massively smoke-logged.

Fortunately, no one was injured.

Image: Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service

Watch Manager Paul Hesford, from Moss Side Fire Station, said: “One of the students had put a chip pan on and left it unattended. 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.”

To find lots advice on cooking and kitchen fire safety head to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service website.