Basically today there was a fire in Yarl’s Wood when I was working in the kitchen as a serving assistant there and there was an explosion in the kitchen and they said to evacuate. And when we went outside there was smoke everywhere. And it was now we have to eat our lunches, we are getting baguettes only, at half past two. Apparently, it was a chips set on fire.

I’m not sure if it was an accident because I wasn’t where the chefs were cooking. We all had to evacuate because where the chefs cook there is one door away from where we serve. One door. So we had to evacuate the place, everyone had to leave the building. It was a proper fire. At the moment they are telling us to stay in our rooms.

There were no fire brigade There was only staff there. Two or three staff. And they had a fire extinguisher. No one got hurt, not at the moment no.

What I think they should of done is to take us to the nearest fire assembly point because that’s the nearest exist. But instead they told us to walk all the way down to our gardens. The fire assembly is upstairs unless you are downstairs the you should leave and go to the nearest garden. That’s meant to be the procedure. Instead they told us to go to our rooms and keep behind our doors that says fire exit keep shut.

I want a lot of people to know that the procedures were exiting to our nearest assembly rather than walking us down where there was more danger. And the fire brigade should be called in to get rid of the smoke and the fire. Obviously this didn’t happen and thank God no one got hurt.