Medway charity 'heartbroken' after devastating fire

A charity in Medway was devastated by a fire this week.

Speaking exclusively to Greatest Hits Radio - Neil Charlick of Gillingham Street Angels - believes the blaze will cost him over twenty thousand pounds and has told us they will have to use money which was intended for the community to pay for the damages.

It happened earlier this week, at their unit in Jenkins Dale at Chatham, after a tumble dryer caught fire in their engineering room - despite being switched off.

Neil says he noticed something was wrong when security cameras in the room went down, thinking someone had broken into the property, he and his wife rushed to the scene.

He said: "When we arrived, I went inside and towards the room, I didn't know what was happening so I opened the door and the flames just burst out, throwing me backwards.

"At this point, I shout to my wife to call the fire service while I stupidly went to collect some valuables from our warehouse. She's begging me to get outside but at that point I'm just not thinking straight."

Eventually Neil got outside unhurt and fire, police and ambulance crews all attended. Due to the fire door, the blaze was contained to just one room but their office was flooded and the surrounding areas were partly damaged by the smoke.

The room was full of electricals which staff fix and send onto their charity shops to be sold. On how this will impact the charity, Neil said: "It's going to cost us a lot of money to rectify the damage, there will be a lot of things that need replacing.

"It's a shame because the money which we would generate ourselves or that people have donated, would be used to feed people and help the community but we will now have to divert money away to make the building safe again.

"It's never a good time for something like this to happen but at Christmas our staff and our recourses are already pushed to the limit because a lot of people need our help at this time of year.

"They need food and they need decorations, there's a lot of things that people don't have, which others take for granted.

"It's heart-breaking. It's really affected my wife, a lot of the staff are quite disheartened, we put out life into this place, so for this to happen, it's sad."

On the charity's next steps, Neil said: "Well it's Christmas so we have cleared up what we can and have had people in to make sure it's safe, that was the most important part.

"Our job at the moment is making sure those in Medway have a good Christmas , that they have food on the table and have presents for their children so for now that is where we are focusing all our efforts."

On the incident, Kent Fire and Rescue said: "Kent Fire and Rescue Service was called at 5.38pm on 13 December to a warehouse on Jenkins Dale, Chatham to reports of a fire.

"Five fire engines attended and crews, wearing breathing apparatus, used hose reel jets to extinguish the flames.

"There were no reported injuries, and the cause is believed to be accidental and linked to an electrical fault."