Leeds fire: Buildings evacuated after major blaze breaks out in city centre
Emergency services were called to the scene just before 8pm on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.Parts of Leeds city centre have been evacuated as fire crews tackle a large blaze at a derelict high-rise building.
Emergency services said the fire was reported at 7.47pm on Cookridge Street, near the city’s Millennium Square.
The top three floors of the building, which the fire service has identified as a “dangerous structure”, were alight.
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said that a safety cordon is currently in place and surrounding buildings have been evacuated due to the “potentially unsafe structure of the derelict building.”
The fire crews are working alongside West Yorkshire Police and Yorkshire Ambulance Service. The Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) is also in attendance, the fire service said.
Leeds Council has urged people keep away from the area around Millennium Square to allow the emergency services space to tackle the ongoing blaze.
Pictures and footafe of the fire began emerging on social media shortly before 8pm tonight.
One witness, Will Dunaway, 18, who had justleft a restaurant on nearby Oxford Place, told the BBC that he perceived “a lot of crackling and some explosions, like a popping sound.”
Several news outlets and people online are claiming that the blaze broke out in the city’s historoic Leonardo Building which opened as a printworks in 1900.
According to the Yorkshire Post, the building was undergoing work to be turned into student accommodation.
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