Fears as students ignore fire safety advice

The warning comes after a student complex was evacuated for the second time this year after fire broke out in a communal kitchen.

Students were forced to evacuate the halls of residence at Arkwright Hall, in Tumbling Hill Street, Bradford, on Sunday.

Bosses at the Opal Property Group, which manages the complex, say they are doing everything they can to warn students not to leave pans unattended - but the warnings are being ignored.

The company has put bright yellow signs above all cookers in the complex to warn students that pans should not be left unattended and a fire safety event - involving a marquee and free food - was also held for students at the complex three weeks ago.

Premises manager Debi Farrell said: "It's unfortunate they don't seem to be taking notice of the notices. What's more, it's only two or three weeks since we held safety meetings.

"It's the second one this year and we had one last year as well. Every time they have involved unattended cooking.

"We don't know what else we can do to get the message across."

Firefighters are also renewing their warning after the latest incident. Toby May, crew manager at Bradford fire station, said: "They had left a pan on the hob and walked off and forgotten about it.

"It had burned itself out when we got there, but the flat was heavily smoke-logged.

"The good thing to come out of this is that nobody was injured."

In May this year, about 100 students were evacuated from the same halls after a kitchen blaze.

Mr May said firefighters would be revisiting the building in the coming days to hand out fire prevention information and advice to students.

John Davies, fire safety adviser at the University of Bradford, said: "We are committed to ensuring that students are provided with essential information about fire safety and every one of our students will have received this during the recent Freshers' Week."

e-mail: will.kilner @bradford.newsquest.co.uk