Fire reveals £100k cannabis factory in Wolverhampton

Two quick-thinking policeman cleared homes as a blaze sparked by a £100,000 cannabis farm threatened to sweep through a terrace of houses in a Black Country street yesterday.

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Pcs Ben Clay and Lewis Littleford were combing the area looking for a suspected burglar when they spotted a wisp of smoke in the air.

They turned into Fawdry Road, Whitmore Reans, and saw that it was coming from the roof of a house in the middle of a terrace of properties.

Pc Clay, aged 35, said: "We realised that every second counts in a situation like this and started banging doors, telling people to get out. Meanwhile, the fire was beginning to take hold." Pc Littleford, 34, added: "Our priority was to get everybody away as soon as possible."

Wolverhampton University student Emma McKeegan, 21, was the only one of the four tenants at home in the property next door to the house that was on fire when the drama started. She explained: "I was working and thought it was a burglary when I heard the banging come from downstairs.

I sent a text to my friend Megan Bird who lives further down the street but she checked and rang back to say it was a fire.

"By that time the firemen had arrived and told me to stay downstairs in my house so they knew where I was while they fought the fire."

Four firemen wearing breathing apparatus went into the empty property as smoke and flames shot through the roof. They found two floors and the loft were filled with hundreds of cannabis plants with an estimated £100,000 yield growing under high powered lighting.

Watch Commander Warren Davis said: "The fire was started by an electrical fault. It was very lucky that it was spotted so quickly because it would have started to go through the rest of the terrace in another five or ten minutes."