Fire-hit tyre firm to be bulldozed

2:41pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

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COMPANY bosses have spoken for the first time about the fire which gutted a tyre warehouse.

Auto Tyre and Battery lost 2,000 tyres as 40ft-high flames ripped through the warehouse in Spring Lane, Malvern.

Operations manager Richard Winters, speaking exclusively to your Worcester News, said the blaze was the only recorded fire in 30 years of trading and had left staff "shocked".

The company runs 28 outlets across the West Midlands which repair and fit tyres and there has never been a fire at any of them before.

Mr Winters confirmed the flame-ravaged warehouse, a mere shell following the inferno last Thursday, would now have to be bulldozed and replaced.

However, the retail part of the business suffered only minor damage to the roof and trading has continued. The Malvern branch employs four people.

Mr Winters said: "We're certainly not dead and buried. We have never had this before in our company.

"That's why we're so shocked by it."

We reported in your Worcester News on Saturday how MDM Pumps next door was just six feet from catastrophe.

Manager Alan Tandy said it was only the direction of the wind and the "excellent" work of fire crews which saved their business.

A spokesman for Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said an investigation into the cause of the blaze was continuing, although arson had been ruled out.

• View pictures of the devastating blaze in our gallery here.