Residents whose homes were destroyed in apocalyptic wildfires three years ago are certain a similar disaster will happen again because the government has failed to install any safety measures.
Sixteen houses were gutted and lives torn apart when an inferno ripped through Wennington, East London, on a breezy 41 degree day in July 2022.
Residents fear that this summer’s dry spell has exacerbated conditions in the nearby grassland and with the Met Office predicting warm weather throughout the weekend, some are worried their time is up again.
Three years on from the disaster which remarkably no one was killed in, those who were there that day have revealed their still visibly charred community are struggling to get back to normal.
Evidence of the enormous fire still scar the Essex estate wherever you look. The earth is blackened in places and scorched in others.
Multiple homes, which once housed young families and pensioners, lie charred, broken and abandoned.
It isn’t hard to see what a catastrophe this was for the tight knit community who told MailOnline the massive rebuilding project continues to this day.
Three years ago on a July day much like this, Dan, a retired firefighter of 28 years, was at home on Wennington Road with his wife when she said she could smell smoke.
Welcome to Wennington: Ground Zero for the London Fire Brigade’s busiest day since World War Two (Pictured: Wennington today)
Sixteen houses were gutted and lives torn apart when an inferno ripped through the estate (Pictured Wennington in 2022)
The fire was sparked by unseasonably hot 41C weather which led to oven like temperatures (Pictured: Firefighters tackling the 2022 blaze)
And so the fire spread, scorching the grasslands and impinging on people’s homes
The 78-year-old recalled: ‘I walked down the road and I could see a couple of fires on the green and houses completely destroyed… it swept along here and in about ten minutes the fire had gone from the corner of the green, along the back… it was moving as fast as you could walk.
‘The police turned up and wanted to get everybody out. I wouldn’t go, I thought if I go, we won’t have a house to come back to. I said to my wife grab the dog, grab the jewellery, get in the car and go.’
In what neighbours described as an ‘unbelievable act of bravery’ and ‘true British grit’ Dan, wearing just shorts and sandals, alongside his son and a neighbour, began fighting the inferno with a garden hose.
He said: ‘People were running for their lives. I spent 28 years in the fire service, I didn’t think for a minute I’d die, I did think I’d lose my house. It was about six feet from me. We kept the fences wet to stop them catching light completely.
‘The fire jumped into numbers 16, 17, 18 and 19, no sign of a fire engine at this end. I thought “oh s***”, I really thought we were going to lose it.
‘There had been a lot of engine oil in barrels dumped in the garage area at the back of the properties, probably 3,000 gallons, an enormous amount… when it exploded it was quite spectacular really, it got things going nicely.’
The group battled the flames behind their homes all afternoon with ‘no help from the fire service’, Dan says, noting how firefighters were focusing efforts elsewhere despite his warnings of the seriousness of the blaze along the back of their houses, collectively known as Kent View.
Evidence of the enormous fire still scar the Essex estate wherever you look (Pictured: Wennington today)
The tight-knit community claim they have been left to pick up the pieces themselves (Pictured: Wennington today)
Three years on from that fateful day, numerous houses stand empty as monuments to the wildfire (Pictured Wennington 2022)
In the absence of immediate help from authorities it was the best Dan and his neighbours could do (Pictured: The 2022 fire)
The villagers are still haunted by the memory of that July day and the carnage it brought (Pictured: Wennington today)
Neighbours said Dan’s actions saved his own home and three others.
But where was the help from authorities? Well, as it turns out, everywhere all at once.
July 19th had quickly turned into the London Fire Brigade’s ‘busiest day since World War Two’ as they responded to over 350 incidents and 2,600 calls across the capital.
As fires ripped through villages across the area, it was Wennington that was proving to be the worst affected.
‘It was like an out of body experience watching your mum’s house go up in flames live on Sky News’, recalls Richard, the son of Carole Hager.
Carole had been at her home of 58-years, a few doors up from Dan, when she looked out the bedroom window and saw the fire ripping across glebe land towards her.
‘I just grabbed my insurance documents, £400 I had in the safe, I didn’t think about getting my jewellery’, she told MailOnline recalling the events which led up to her home being totally destroyed.
Speaking from the lounge of her newly rebuilt home, which she only moved back into a month ago, the 81-year-old added: ‘The only thing that survived was a freezer. Lots of mementos which were my fathers, he lost both his legs in the war, I had his army cap and his stick, my partner Ken’s football medals, you can’t put a price on that.
‘It is a lovely home but it is not my home, it just doesn’t feel the same but I’ve just got to get over that, it was a horrible thing and I’m still frightened now.
‘It’s taken three years. We had to find temporary accommodation, we were living in a bungalow in Rainham. There was so much rigmarole, planning permission, community infrastructure levy charge.’
TIME FLIES: A property in Wennington pictured before (top), 1 year (middle) and 3 years (bottom) after the fire
The population of Wennington was dramatically reduced following the raging fire (Pictured: Construction work today)
Work has been started to rebuild a row of properties that were gutted in the fire (Pictured: Construction work today)
Drone pictures show deep scars on the grassland surrounding the village three years after the wildfire (Pictured: Wennington today)
Carole says her insurers and loss adjusters have been wonderful but it is a tax bill imposed by Havering Council on rebuilt homes, known as a Community Infrastructure Levy, which has inflicted unnecessary trauma on those whose properties were destroyed.
The mum-of-two, who was subjected to a £10,000 tax bill due to the size of her rebuilt home, added: ‘I’ve got to live here for three years, if I don’t survive for three years, money has got to come out of the estate, they don’t cater for exceptional circumstances like this fire was.’
Her partner Ken explained: ‘The pressure was from us to get an exemption form, we kept the pressure up and they decided to do it. What they keep calling this is a self-build, not a rebuild.. It just does not make sense.’
Carole is not the only resident to have suffered.
Nicola Reitz, who lives a few doors up from Carole, remembers the fire like it was yesterday. At the time, she weighed 18.5 stone, was disabled and had been struggling in the blistering 40C heat that day.
‘I could barely walk. My husband came in from work and said “you look like you’re going to pass out”, I said I feel really, really ill. The heat is getting too much for me’, the 55-year-old, who now weighs 9.5 stone, said.
She went out to the garden to get some air but noticed black flecks of ash floating through the air. She looked over and saw the blaze racing towards her.
By some miracle the fire dodged Nicola’s home, which is the middle of the Kent View terrace, but it didn’t escape unscathed and had suffered serious smoke damage.
She said: ‘I was living in the house which was full of smoke for six months. Breathing in the fumes was horrific. You’re sleeping in a smoke filled pillows and smoke filled quilt.
‘The whole house had to be renovated, everything from top to bottom. I can’t begin to imagine what people have lost their homes have gone through, to lose your whole life, everything.’
TIME FLIES: A house in Wennington pictured before (top), 1 year (middle) and 3 years (bottom) after the fire
Three years ago, Dan, wearing just shorts and sandals, fought the inferno with a garden hose
Teru Akinfe and his wife also suffered the fallout of the fire – while not losing his home, the blaze destroyed his shed, exploded mains pipes, filled his home with smoke and upended the couple’s life, like the rest of those affected.
The 57-year-old, who works for DHL, explained: ‘I was at work and had 17 miss calls from my wife. It was frightening, I didn’t know where my wife was. I thought the house was going to burn down.
‘We didn’t know which houses had burned down until the next day. They were calling us in one by one to tell us what condition our house was in.
‘When you come and see a scene like that it was like a scene from 9/11. We had intense smoke damage inside, all the electrics condemned, furniture gone, and all the pipes burst under the heat and flooded the house.
‘We lived in a Premier Inn for eight months. We had to gut everything, everything is new.’
On the third anniversary of the fires which tore their community apart, while some homes have been totally rebuilt, many remain behind hoardings.
Among them are the Mariners Cottages which are still being rebuilt.
But the most notable evidence of the devastation is a farm house perched on its own above Wennington. It was totally destroyed when the blaze tore through a cornfield and swallowed up the entire farmyard.
It remains an ashen skeleton hidden behind makeshift gates which warn trespassers not to go inside. The farm did not have house insurance, it’s owners are nowhere to be seen.
TIME FLIES: Marine Cottages in Wennington pictured before (top), 1 year (middle) and 3 years (bottom) after the fire
Dan points to the devastation the fire caused to a village wall – which still stands ruined
Mary Jones did not lose her home but lived right next door to Marine Cottages which were levelled in the fire
While grateful to have escaped the infernos with their lives, residents say the inaction over fire safety by local authorities has left them convinced they will fall victims to more blazes, especially given a spate of recent fires in the area.
‘I am sure this will happen again’, says Dan, who has since installed a leaky hose above his fence in case of another fire.
He said the issues also come down to funding the fire service, noting his horror at learning how a team drove 30 miles from Battersea to battle the Wennington wildfires.
‘I was left very disappointed with the fire service, not their fault really, there just weren’t any fire engines’, he said.
Carole agrees and admits she is struggling to understand why the owner of the glebe land where the blaze ripped through and towards their homes has not had a proper fire break installed. There is instead just a hard standing garage area between homes and the field which did little to stop the fire when it took hold.
Carole said: ‘I wrote to the government saying this country should have a disaster fund, when there is a disaster abroad, nearly everyone gets help don’t they, we didn’t get any help whatsoever apart from one lovely local lady who set up a GoFundMe. =
‘I still feel now, those fields out the back, they’ve not got a fire break. The recent fire in Dagenham has one and it saved those houses. If we had a fire break I don’t think our houses would’ve gone.
‘It’s just been a fight all the way with different things and it shouldn’t be, especially the trauma that everybody has been through.’
Mary Jones also fears future blazes, noting the spate of recent fires in the area.
She said: ‘It’s just scary at the minute. There have been a lot of fires around here recently. When anyone sees any smoke they panic. There was a big one in Erith.
‘The fire brigade are saying the fire break is what helped in Erith so why haven’t they put them in place here? The farmer should be thinking how we’re all feeling.’
Havering Council and The London Fire Brigade were approached for comment.
