9:30am Sunday 5th September 2010
By Matthew Edwards
A FIRE has destroyed the ground floor of a home in Pinehurst.
The tenants, a woman with two children, were at a neighbour’s house at the time but two dogs which were in the property had to be rescued by fire crews.
The blaze happened in a semi-detached property in The Circle just after 8pm on Thursday.
The emergency services attended the scene with fire crews from Swindon and Stratton on hand to extinguish the fire, which took about an hour.
Firefighters and the police remained at the site until the early hours of Friday to ensure the situation was under control.
The fire caused a large amount of damage to the ground floor of the property, with the sitting room being gutted, and the house has now been boarded up.
There is also a large amount of smoke damage visible on the outside of the property as well as heat damage to the roof caused by the flames.
The cause of the fire is thought to be an electrical fault and it is not being treated as suspicious.
The family is believed to be staying with a friend while the council’s housing team sort out accommodation. Two other occupants of the property, a pair of rabbits, have been given a temporary home by a neighbourhood warden.
They were found in the rear garden of the property when Warrick Lynham, neighbourhood warden for Pinehurst, visited to check on the tenants. He said: “We just popped round there to see if we could provide any service, like we would with anyone in our neighbourhood.
“We have housed them in our staff room.
“We have a new cage for them and bedding and food and they will stay there until the tenant is able to pick them up. They are very happy.”
Members of the neighbourhood warden team will be checking on the rabbits throughout the weekend to make sure they are fed and watered.
The animals will be reunited with their owners when they have been rehomed.
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