Council workers accidentally set fire to carpet store with flame guns

Council workers were given flame guns to rid a town's pavements of weeds - then accidentally set a shop on fire. Oldham council chiefs kitted out their staff with the equipment as part of a bid to win Britain In Bloom. But businessman Jon Riley was left blazing mad after they unwittingly set fire to the front of his father's Roll End Carpets shop.

He believes the business - which has been in the family for 36 years - could have been destroyed.mJon, 31, who was in the shop at the time, said: 'They sprayed [weedkiller] first and then these two blokes came with these blowtorches. I didn't pay too much attention but about five minutes later I could smell burning. I went outside and flames were going up the shop front.



'The blokes were down the road doing somewhere else. I shouted to them and they came running back. We got the fire extinguisher out and then the fire service came. The flames had spread up the door and to the sign. They had to use thermal imaging cameras to make sure it hadn't spread.

'I've been left with half a sign and a tatty shop-front. Business is hard enough as it is without this. You'd have thought they may have used a bit of common sense - dry wood and flames don't mix. It's not rocket science. If I'd have nipped out for dinner and not been there to smell it, well, with a shop full of carpets who knows what would have happened?'