Flower shop gutted in fierce fire

A Shrewsbury florist's shop was destroyed in a blaze caused by an electrical fault early today. Fire crews were alerted to the blaze in Dogpole Floral Art shortly after 2.20am.Susan Edwards, who has run the shop, inside Frank Painter's Funeral Directors, Ditherington Road, Ditherington, for seven years, said: "It's just gutted. It needs completely redecorating.

"I'm going to be working from home until it's done, but I've no idea how long that will be because the insurance company won't be open until Tuesday.

"I've lost all my records, so anyone with jobs in progress will have to contact me again."

Fire investigation officers stayed at the scene until 5am and established that the fire was caused by an electrical fault.

Chris Painter, of Frank Painter's Funeral Directors, said although there was some smoke damage to the wedding car fleet it could be repaired.

"I want to reassure people that the fire hasn't affected the funeral directors, just the flower shop unit."

Paul Fulgoni, fire incident commander, said: "We found that the fire was contained within the shop. Two crews entered the premises with breathing apparatus and two high pressured hose reels jets and put out the fire within 15 minutes.

"The shop is severely damaged. It is a single room shop within the funeral director's property and the owner does all her work in one room. Obviously there's a lot of cars at the property and we didn't want the fire to spread to them."

The gutted interior of Dogpole Floral Art after an electrical fire swept through the shop.

Owner of Dogpole Floral Art, Susan Edwards.

Another view of the damage caused by the fire.