DORSET and Wiltshire Fire Service has issued a warning to residents and business operators who don't have fire or gas detectors in the wake of an incident on Monday, 11 December when two crews attended a premises after an alarm was raised.

The drama played out at Pavilion Green West in Poundbury at 7.33pm after an alarm went off when high carbon monoxide levels were detected.

The premises were evacuated while ventilated the building.

A fire service spokesperson said: "We received a call of alarms sounding. A crew from Dorchester attended and on arrival, carried out a search using gas monitoring equipment.

"This detected high gas levels, so firefighters proceeded to evacuate and ventilate the property – a second appliance from Beaminster was mobilised to the incident as a precaution.

"The gas supply to the property was isolated, and monitoring continued until a reading of zero was present."

Crews stood down just after 9pm.

The fire service said the incident highlighted the need for working alarms and a spokesperson added: "Please make sure you check your alarms as without a detector in this incident the outcome would have been much worse."

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Service advice:

https://www.dwfire.org.uk/safety/safety-at-home/carbon-monoxide/

https://www.dwfire.org.uk/safety/safety-at-home/smoke-alarms/