{"id":736886,"date":"2026-08-13T17:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736886\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T17:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:12:19","slug":"homes-on-fire-as-blazes-rage-across-the-west-midlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736886\/","title":{"rendered":"Homes on fire as blazes rage across the West Midlands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;We could see the flames above the rooftops&#8217;published at 17:39 BST<\/p>\n<p>17:39 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jane Baxter, who lives just off Norton Road, says she and her neighbours were evacuated from their homes as a precaution. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Her house backs directly onto Stourbridge Golf Course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said she first noticed the smell of smoke at about 13:15 BST before seeing the flames.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We could see the flames above the rooftops of the houses &#8211; that was how high the flames were,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A police car is parked in front of a two storey house which appears to be on fire. Flames are leaping up the side of the property while the air is filled with thick black smoke.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/e8bd12a8-d808-4357-b668-b961d2693aca.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1126\" height=\"633\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Chris Dunnington<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By about 15:30, police had arrived on her road and told those in the eight homes backing onto the golf course to get out and leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said police told residents that strong and unpredictable winds could cause the fire to spread rapidly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Baxter said: &#8220;The fire has obviously taken hold very quickly and the police said they were concerned.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She is staying at her son&#8217;s house and has been told she cannot return home until the fire is completely out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;We could see the flames above the rooftops&#8217;published at 17:39 BST 17:39 BST Jane Baxter, who lives just&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-736886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736886","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=736886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}