An 89-year-old woman was pulled to safety from her thatched cottage in Stourbridge with only seconds to spare before it was engulfed by flames, as a wildfire swept through the area on 13 August, destroying 19 homes. Redmays, a well-known local landmark on the fringes of the West Midlands town, was one of the few remaining thatched-roof properties in the borough of Dudley, and police suspect the blaze, which tore through around 500 acres, may have been started deliberately in a nearby field. The fire's speed and destruction have devastated the family, who had lived in the property for almost 50 years.

The homeowner's daughter, whose husband was staying at the house and raised the alarm, said neighbours rushed in to rescue her mother as embers jumped from the field and caught the thatch. The blaze destroyed almost everything inside, including her late father's ashes and a car bought as a gift by her mother's late husband in the 1960s, with only a small teapot surviving. Built in 1934 and known locally as "the thatched house on the corner", Redmays had previously made headlines in 2016 when its roof was rethatched. The stress of the disaster has taken a toll on the elderly homeowner's health, and she is now in a nursing home following a heart attack, while the family faces having to rebuild the property entirely.