{"id":709571,"date":"2026-07-24T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709571\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T22:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:16:11","slug":"major-incident-declared-as-100-firefighters-tackle-industrial-unit-blaze-after-explosion-in-essex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709571\/","title":{"rendered":"Major incident declared as 100 firefighters tackle industrial unit blaze after explosion in Essex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;The whole house completely shook&#8217;published at 21:19 BST<\/p>\n<p>21:19 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\">Joshua Holmes-Bright<br \/>Reporting from Essex<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Debbie Thaxter wearing sunglasses outside\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5c5bba08-03a5-44e4-b5cd-dd245113cad3.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1596\" height=\"898\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Debbie Thaxter, 63, lives on East Hanningfield Road near the site of the incident. She said it felt like &#8220;a sonic explosion&#8221; when the fire broke out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The whole house completely shook, the windows I thought we were going to lose them,&#8221; she tells me. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I ran out the house and my next door neighbour was really distressed and crying because we we just saw the flames,&#8221; she adds, describing the scene as &#8220;really, really frightening&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I&#8217;ve gone upstairs all the loft hatches have sort of blown off and everything and part of the plaster&#8217;s come off the ceiling,&#8221; she says, adding that her house is currently without power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;The whole house completely shook&#8217;published at 21:19 BST 21:19 BST Joshua Holmes-BrightReporting from Essex Debbie Thaxter, 63, lives&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-709571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}