Bedford: Major incident as crews fight fire in flats

Summary

Emergency services are at the scene of a "major gas explosion" in Bedford
A witness described hearing a "huge boom"
Three people have been taken to hospital, one with serious injuries
The incident happened in the Redwood Grove area of the town at about 09:30 BST

Live Reporting

Kate Scotter, Stuart Bailey and Helen Burchell

'It was a very large explosion'published at 12:17 British Summer Time 4 July 2022
People in the area have been describing what they saw.
Adam Fisher, who works nearby, said there was "a huge explosion".
"Everyone went to our work car park to see what was happening," he said.
"Our building is adjacent to the apartment complex - immediately an inferno [was] visible, huge smoke cloud billowing, people screaming and people frantically calling for emergency services."
Resident Adrian Marz said: "It was really a very large explosion, it blew up half the building and all the windows around it.
"It was extremely loud, it startled me straightaway."
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on Twitter
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip twitter post
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of twitter post
Smoke and flames from roof captured on videopublished at 12:10 British Summer Time 4 July 2022
Media caption,
Video showed smoke and flames coming from the block of flats.
What do we know so far?published at 12:10 British Summer Time 4 July 2022
Image source, Alex Feltham
Emergency services are at the scene of a "major gas explosion" at a block of flats in Bedford.
The incident happened in the Redwood Grove area of the town at about 09:30 BST.
Witness Alex Feltham said he heard "a huge boom", and the roof of the block of flats had been destroyed. He said the flames spread quickly.
It is not yet known if there are casualties but the fire service said gas caused the explosion.
Bedfordshire Police and the fire service have asked people to avoid the area.
Major gas explosion at flatspublished at 12:07 British Summer Time 4 July 2022
There are reports of an explosion at flats in the Redwood Grove area of Bedford.
We will be keeping you up to date on what has happened, as we get more details.
Read our full story here.
Image source, Alex Feltham