Tyres fire sparks emergency calls (From Stourbridge News)

Tyres fire sparks emergency calls

FLAMING tyres caused a pall of thick black smoke visible for miles around and prompting several 999 calls, today.

Between 20 and 30 car tyres - some still attached to wheels - had caught fire in a hedge running along a field boundary in Common Barn Road off the A449, near Kidderminster.

A member of the public used a mobile phone to alert firefighters after spotting a burning bush giving off thick smoke at 11am.

Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service control received numerous calls from Kidderminster and across the Staffordshire border after black smoke was thrown up into the atmosphere.

The town's red watch fire crew arrived to find tyres "dumped" in a hedge and well ablaze, according to watch manager Mick Rowlands.

He said: "We've got a foam system in the tank which injects into the water stream which we can then use on burning tyres.

"It took about half an hour to put out.

"We've just left them as they may belong to a farmer who uses to weigh down hay bales.

"If it had been a liquid or fluid we'd have called environmental health."

It is not known how the fire started or how the tyres came to be in the hedge which is in a largely rural area.