{"id":50388,"date":"2023-03-30T12:32:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T11:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shefnews.co.uk\/?p=50388"},"modified":"2023-03-30T12:32:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T11:32:16","slug":"sheffield-fire-former-city-church-destroyed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/03\/30\/sheffield-fire-former-city-church-destroyed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheffield fire: Former city church destroyed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the early hours of March 29, a fire broke out in an abandoned building on Copper street, the city centre of Sheffield .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building was built in 1858 and was named St Jude’s Moorfields Church School. It was finally closed in 1999 due to operational problems, and it has been abandoned so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The night of the 29th, the fire was massive and lasted for nearly an hour until it was entirely extinguished by six firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Moore, 45, a resident who lived near the scene of the fire, said: “I was on my way home that night when suddenly there was a light in that direction and a strong smell of smoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The outside of the broken house, Photo by Austin (Zhen Zhang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“I didn’t realize there was a blaze until I saw the flames, and the inside of the house was already burning, so scary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 45 year old then described the scene at that time. She said that looking at the inside of the house from the outside, the wooden structure inside had been burned, and the outer wall on the top had also become blackened. The firefighters immediately pulled up the cordon after arriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been previously reported that this is not the first time the building has suffered a severe fire. It also burned part of the structure in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Edwards, 61, one of the maintainers of the street area, explained: “In 2018, there was a fire that was not serious here. Maybe it was a problem with its building structure, or it needed to be carefully repaired all year round, which made it easy to cause a fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The luckiest thing is that it is not close to other surrounding buildings, has enough independent space, and the fire was quickly extinguished, which avoided enough serious injuries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the fire, the scene was cleared by firefighters, but there were still a lot of burn marks, including broken windows, burnt wall skin, and black wood materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The window of the broken house, Photo by Austin (Zhen Zhang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second floor of the house was also damaged to a certain extent. The outer wall of the second floor was also damaged, exposing the structure of the inner room, and the bed was burnt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At present, the site has been cordoned off, and other irrelevant people are prohibited from entering; this was explained to be for safety and handling site flexibility by the fire station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More \ud83d\udcf8 from last night's incident in Sheffield.

Big shout out to Control room operators who are the unseen heroes behind our response to large scale incidents like this. pic.twitter.com\/HN8yupniSG<\/a><\/p>— South Yorkshire Fire (@SYFR) March 29, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>