Baldock Industrial Estate fire: Business owner says 'it's all gone'

A business owner says he has lost about £250,000 after two of his companies were destroyed in a major fire that ripped through an industrial estate.

About 40 businesses were destroyed at the Baldock Industrial Estate after the fire on Tuesday evening.

Hertfordshire Fire Service said its investigation concluded the fire started accidentally.

Kareem Kamil was due to open an nightclub and was refurbishing a pizza takeaway said his hard work had "gone".

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said the fire, which took hold at about 18:15 BST, started accidentally near a tower in the north-eastern part of the estate, and then spread.

Mr Kamil said he was working on the roof terrace when the blaze started and was the only person there.

"I got out in time; it caught like wild fire," he said.

He said the fire brigade "were brilliant" and he was lucky not to be hurt.

The building was insured, but he said his contents insurance had not been finalised.

"It's terrible, literally 15 months of hard work, all the battles, it's gone down the drain," added Mr Kamil.

"It's all gone, that's my savings, all my children's savings, gone down the pan. I invested everything in it and it's literally gone down in smoke."

A packed meeting was held on Thursday afternoon at Baldock Community Centre for those affected by the fire.

Craig Ross, who has a number of businesses on the site and a unit with five tenants, told the BBC "it was horrific" when he saw the flames.

He said so many business had been affected and local farmers turned up to provide water on the night.

"They've all got their tractors out with bowsers of water," he said.

"I cried, they were just providing water to the fire service so they could do what they could do to stop the fire spreading."

The industrial estate, off London Road, is next the town's Tesco supermarket, which was also evacuated.

Residents were asked to keep their windows closed due to the large amount of smoke, and some lost power and water supplies.

The fire service said there might be an unpleasant smell in the air for some time, but it was not harmful.

Sir Oliver Heald, Conservative MP for North East Hertfordshire, said it had been a "big shock" for the town and said "43 industrial units have been destroyed".

Darren Cook, from the fire service, said: "This was a very challenging incident for Hertfordshire Fire and at the peak we had 17 engines attending and we declared it at major incident at about eight o'clock on the evening of the incident."

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