‘Stourbridge fires destroyed our home and we can never show grandson photos’

Treasured photos of family members, destroyed forever - those are among the key possessions which Sandy and Uttam Shiralkar say they will never hold again.

They were among the 19 families who lost their homes when two fires started accidentally and tore through dry grass and into their estate in Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, on the hottest day of the year.

"We have lost 20, 30 years of memories. They may be there in the mind but you can't share them with others," Uttam said.

He was working from home on 13 August when he first noticed the smell of smoke, at first thinking someone was having a barbecue.

How did some houses survive the Stourbridge fire while neighbours lost everything?

Within minutes he was forced to flee from the house with only the clothes he was wearing, along with his car keys.

The next time the couple were allowed to return to the home, which they had lived in for 19 years, was four days later, to see how bad the damage was.

"It was a shock, it is true, we have lost our house," Uttam said.

"Our photographs, we had everything in the house, gone," Sandy added.

They have been told it will take up to two years for their house to be rebuilt.

"My reaction was, 'I built it from scratch and now it is all gone and I don't want to go there again, at our stage of life, and maybe just go somewhere else'," Sandy said.

But they now say they will rebuild, although getting over the fire will take them a lot longer than two years.

Sandy described it as the "biggest event of my life so far... after my father's death”.

For the past month the couple have been living out of their car boot with what little possessions they have.

It has felt like being a "nomadic tribe moving from one place to another", Uttam added, as they stayed with friends at first then relocated to a local hotel.

They will move into a temporary home this weekend.

Casting his mind back, Uttam remembered he had decided to go outside, after smelling smoke, to check what was happening.

Returning, a police officer stopped him and told him there was a fire evacuation taking place and he needed to leave.

"At that time I must admit I didn't grasp the severity of the situation. I was hopeful that I could complete my work," Uttam said.

"That was on my mind; I didn't grasp the situation until we went to the town hall that evening. I wasn't aware that it was so big."

Four days later, the couple were allowed back to see the shell that was once their family home.

Sandy said she could not believe what was left of their home.

"I was hoping there would be more remains than what we actually saw. That was very hard to accept and hard to believe," she said.

Unbelievably to them, Uttam's car, which he had left parked in front of the garage, was without a scratch and it started first time.

The couple said they had put on a brave face to the outside world but were left with only their memories.

Photographs of their only son when he was a child were all destroyed, without any digital copies, so they will no longer be able to show their grandson the pictures of his dad.

Friends and family had shown them so much support, Uttam and Sandy said, and they would be nowhere without them.

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