Three workmen feared for their lives as they tried to escape from the loft of a burning building.
Four fire engines and 20 firefighters were called to the blaze in the roof at the St Giles residential special needs housing scheme.
Three men were working in the roof space of one of the properties in Moor Hall Lane, between East Hanningfield and Bicknacre, near Chelmsford, when an explosion on the ground floor started the fire yesterday.
Steve Wootton, 19, and Phaisan Dinnes, 23, both from Pitsea, were trapped with a third colleague in the roof as the building burned beneath them.
Mr Dinnes said: "We were trying to run but we couldn't breathe or see, I don't know how I found my way to the hatch. I looked down and didn't think twice - I jumped down into the flames.
"The fire was all around me so I made a break for it. My suit was burning. When I got outside, I took my mask off and collapsed."
Meanwhile Mr Wootton and a 57-year-old colleague forced their way out through the roof by punching through the felt and knocking aside roof slates.
Fire crews told them, if they had stayed in the building much longer, they would have been trapped.
More in today's Evening Gazette
Published Tuesday, February 8, 2005
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