Northamptonshire Police have just issued a bulletin on their website stating that a man has been arrested on suspicion of arson in connection with the fire. Roads in the industrial estate remain closed while firefighters continue to tackle the fire and work closely with the police and other agencies to maintain public safety.
The bulletin goes on to report: Deputy Chief Fire Officer David Harding, from Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We expect to have fire officers at the scene for at least the next couple of days while we continue efforts to extinguish the fire.
“This was an extremely large building on fire which required more than 50 firefighters, 10 pumping and two aerial appliances along with other specialist vehicles, to tackle it during the early hours of this morning.”
It will be some time yet before investigators can gain access to the building however, police have launched an arson investigation and would like to speak to anyone who may have information about the fire or who may have witnessed anyone acting suspiciously near to the warehouse late last night.
Anyone in the area affected by smoke from the fire is advised to close doors and windows as a precautionary measure.
Witnesses or anyone with information should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Gardman CEO, Pete Utting spoke to GTN Xtra earlier this morning about the fire at their Daventry warehouse which broke out last night.
"All of the people on the night shift have been accounted for but we can not gain access to the site yet. When I left at 6:00am the fire was still burning." Speaking from the Peterborough head office Pete was devastated after a week when their pick rate had exceeded the 100,000 mark for the first time in their efforts to catch up on delivery problems from earlier in the year. "Staff are very shaken here. We are setting up crisis management teams but until we can gain access to the site we have no idea as to the extent of the damage."
As soon as we receive any further information from Gardman or the fire service we will publish more updates.
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue @northantsfire tweeted overnight: 23:41 Currently in attendance at serious High Bay Warehouse fire, 10 pumps, 2 aerials and 2 High Volume Pumps in attendance, Parsons Rd,
Then at 4:25am they added: More than 50 firefighters are in attendance at a warehouse fire in Daventry. Fire crews were called the unit in Parsons Road, Drayton Fields Industrial Estate just before midnight on Sunday, March 11.
At 10:59 AM, today they have tweeted: Incident Daventry - Firefighting operations are still continuing using High Volume Pumps and Aerial appliances, assistance is being given to @northantsfire by @OxonFireRescue & @WarksFireRescue
Rafal, @Rafal05836236 who was working on the night shift has tweeted some video footage of the fire: https://twitter.com/Rafal05836236
BBC News reported on the fire that broke out last night at Gardman's Daventry warehouse and distribution facility.
According to the BBC website the fire broke out at 23:41 GMT on Sunday. They go on to report that firefighters are still at the scene and police said at this time there are not believed to be any casualties.
