EXCLUSIVE: Housing Secretary Angela Rayner speaks to The Mirror after walking among shells of houses at Quarry Park Road, Stourbridge, following the huge blaze which destroyed 19 homes
Angela Rayner today admitted she was not prepared for what she found in Stourbridge, saying the devastation left by the wildfire was “like going through a movie.”
The Housing Secretary walked among fire-damaged shells on Quarry Park Road, where 19 homes were destroyed, and met families who fled with nothing.
Asked if she had been ready for what she saw, Ms Rayner told The Mirror: “No, it was like going through a movie. I’ve never seen that level of devastation and the indiscriminate way in which you can see the fire had moved so swiftly, and just the sheer devastation of what happened there, and seeing the people who I’ve seen today who are shell shocked, who have lost everything. You know, they’ve worked all their lives, and they just saw everything go.”
Ms Rayner said one woman who had been made a widow around 12 months ago had lost the home and possessions she shared with her late husband.
She said: “She’s lost everything. That must be incredibly devastating. And another family who they run their business from home, and they’ve lost all of the business paperwork, everything. They came out of the house with no shoes on.”
Pressed on the message the families gave her as she appeared at West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service HQ in Birmingham, the senior Cabinet minister went on: “I think at the moment they’re just really devastated by what’s happened to them. I think people recognise that, thank God, nobody was seriously injured or no lives were lost.
“I mean, if you look at the scale of the devastation and how quickly that engulfed, I think people are thankful that that is the case. But obviously, people are now coming to terms with how devastating it is to lose everything.”
Ms Rayner also told broadcasters on Monday that wildfire challenges were “becoming more frequent”.
She said: “We’re seeing a pattern here with the wildfires. We’re seeing a pattern with climate. We have introduced £100 million more equipment and we’ve got specialist fire crews now that look at wildfires, and they have been pushed by what’s happened.”
She continued: “It’s clear that these challenges are becoming more frequent.” She also said the Government is continuing to “assess the situation with water”.
She said: “We’re also pushing the water companies to tackle leakages and investment in our infrastructure that we haven’t seen for a number of decades.
“We want the water companies to do more and we’re pressing them to do more. And, of course, we’re assessing the risks to make sure that we have the appropriate water supplies that people need.”
Residents were evacuated from their homes in the area last week have been allowed to return to view their properties, an update from Dudley Borough Council released on Sunday said.
Some 13 households whose properties were partially damaged in the blaze have been able to return, chief executive Balvinder Heran said in a residents’ briefing.
The Stourbridge fire is among a host of blazes which have ripped across Britain over the last week. Other fires have raged across South Wales, in the New Forest, and in the Cairngorms in Scotland. On Friday evening, millions of people in England and Wales received an alert on their mobile devices warning them of a “very high risk of wildfires nationally”.