Pontnewynydd House Fire - Homes destroyed

Under Control

Last night it took six fire appliances from New Inn, Abersychan, Blaenavon, Cwmbran, Usk and Abercarn to bring under control and then extinguish a blaze at Machine Meadow, which is between Pontnewynydd and Abersychan.

The fire, which was reported at 7.54pm last night was well under way by the time the first fire appliance arrived, with two terraced properties already engulfed in flames.

It took ten men with breathing apparatus and four water jets to prevent the blaze from spreading to the rest of the homes in the terraced street, before finally being brought under control at around 9.30pm.

During the incident, a dog and two cats were rescued, but regrettably one of the cats died shortly afterwards, probably as a result of smoke inhalation.

Remember, that with smoke inhalation, you have only a few minutes before you suffer brain damage or brain death, which is why it is vital for communities to have local fire stations available to rescue and provide clean oxygen to victims of the smoke.

If the Fire Service have their way, Blaina will have to wait for more than 10 minutes, which is totally unacceptable.

Now why am I posting this information on our site, when Pontewyndd is outside of the operating area of Blaina?

Well, because it highlights the fact that six units were required to control the blaze and here we are in Blaenau Gwent, with just five pumps, talking about slashing 20% of our available resources to save a few pounds by robbing Peter to pay Paul.