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Town centre fire rips through pizza restaurant building

By: KentOnline reporter multimediadesk@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 00:00, 20 March 2008

Crews from the Kent Fire and Rescue Service attend the fire at Pizza Express. Picture: MARTIN APPS

Fire experts and police experts are working to find the cause of a fire which broke out in flats above a town centre pizza restaurant in Kent on Sunday.

About 40 firefighters tackled the blaze in the roof and top floor of a three-storey building in North Street, Ashford, at around 7.10am.

Police closed several roads and neighbouring flats were evacuated because of fears the fire could spread.

Firefighters using breathing apparatus were able to search the smoke-logged building, which is used as flats and a Pizza Express restaurant. They confirmed that everyone was accounted for.

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Incident Commander Martin Adams said: "At the height of the fire we had seven fire appliances and a turntable ladder. Breathing apparatus crew were sent in and did really well in terms of getting into the building quickly and then opening the roof up to ventilate the building and let all the heat and smoke out.

"The fire has been confined to one part of the building, and that's down to the positive approach of the crews."

Most roads were reopened on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Adams added: "We are not aware of a cause yet. We are working alongside the police to try and establish the most likely cause."

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