THE death of a serial hoarder in a house fire last year has led to a new partnership between the fire brigade and her former housing provider.

Yesterday (Tuesday, May 21), an inquest heard how the huge piles of junk in 65-year-old Ann Bradshaw’s County Durham home not only fuelled the fire but hampered rescue attempts.

Firefighters managed to rescue Mrs Bradshaw’s 37-year-old son but were unable to save the pensioner after a blaze broke out at the property in Honister Place, Newton Aycliffe, on May 14 last year.

Since then, County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service (CDDFRS) has been working with her former landlord livin to prevent similar incidents. The partnership will soon be formalised with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The agreement will see all front line staff at the social housing provider trained to identify tenants who are vulnerable to fire.

This includes learning how to spot signs of hoarding or drugs and alcohol misuse, as well as looking out for overloaded electrical sockets, poor housekeeping and cigarette burns.

Community fire protection and prevention manager Dominic Brown, of CDDFRS, said: “Hoarding is not something that just happens overnight and you also get different levels of hoarding.

“Some don’t throw anything away at all, including food packaging and other waste.

“Others are perhaps just enthusiastic collectors who are not aware of the fire risks.

“That is why it is so important to ensure housing association staff are trained to spot the signs.”

Training sessions have already taken place at livin and staff are being shown how to carry out home fire safety checks for less vulnerable tenants.

More serious cases will be passed onto the fire brigade and the most vulnerable people, such as extreme hoarders, will be entered onto a vulnerable person database.

This is a countywide initiative that sees housing providers and organisations such as Age Concern and Environmental Health make referrals to CDDFRS.

At present, there are 31 hoarders on the database, who are subject to regular visits and discussed at monthly meetings.

Barbara McAuley, health safety and risk manager at livin, said: “The partnership with the fire service has enabled us to identify a number of high risk fire cases amongst tenants.

“Working together we are supporting tenants and training staff to significantly reduce the risk of fires in the home.”

For more information on hoarding and the help available visit helpforhoarders.co.uk