At 20:43 this evening, Greater Manchester Police control room directly contacted our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE to request the team’s attendance to search for a missing person(s) in connection with a fire at the junction of Blackburn Road and Waters Meeting, Bolton.
A full team pager callout was made at 20:50 resulting in 24 team members responding.
A fire had occurred in derelict premises, alongside Bridge Private Hire at the junction of Waters Meeting and Blackburn Road, to which GMP and a number of fire appliances from GMFRS attended.
Information relating to this fire led Police and GMFRS staff on-scene to believe that the possibility existed of a person having been seen on the premises, and possibly being in the steep sided valley area of Eagley Brook directly behind the premises which had been alight.
In view of the very steep ground including vertical drops of between 40-50ft, the team was requested to conduct a thorough search of this area. Our search commenced at 21:35 finishing at 23:25, including the course of Eagley Brook, parts of Astley Brook, and the very steep sided wooded valley of Waters Meeting.
Our search proved negative and with no persons at this stage reported missing, we were stood down on scene at 23:45.
The following resources were involved in this incident:
- GMFRS Fire Appliances from Bolton Central, Bolton North and Farnworth Fire Stations
- GMP Divisional Officers, CID, and PCSOs
- Bolton MRT 24 personnel on scene (one further member assisting with unloading vehicles at the conclusion of this incident), four Land Rover MR Ambulances, Team Minibus.
The team would like to express its thanks to the management and staff of Riley’s Snooker and Pool Club on Blackburn Road for their kind hospitality in providing hot drinks for all our members attending (the MRT RVP was directly outside their premises)
