Firefighters called again to derelict Moldgreen houses

Jun 3 2009 by Joanne Douglas, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PART of a roof collapsed on firefighters tackling a fire at a row of derelict houses.

Once again fire crews were called to Poplar Street and Gelder Terrace in Moldgreen where a fire has been deliberately started inside one of the empty houses.

Firefighters beat back intense smoke to get inside but a small section of the roof collapsed on them.

So they changed tactics and began to fight the fire from the air.

And Huddersfield Crew Manager Mark Hurd said the sooner the properties were pulled down the better it would be.

Last night shortly after 6pm crews from Huddersfield and Elland were at the scene along with two police units and two ambulances.

Firefighter Mark Hurd said: “There has been a spate of fires here - we’ve been called out maybe a dozen times in the past month.

“Most of the fires have been started deliberately and it is becoming an ongoing theme of call outs here.

“On this occasion the fire seems to have been burning for some time because of the amount of smoke we faced.

“Our firefighters went inside but a section of the roof collapsed, thankfully not a lot and they were able to get out safely.

“So we had to tackle it from the air and once we’ve got rid of all the smoke we can go inside and investigate the cause of the fire.”