Update: More video added. Scroll down.
Update #2: Fire reported to have spread to other buildings.
Sky News
A 4-STORY OFFICE BUILDING IN DOWNTOWN LONDON, ENGLAND, is burning out of control at this writing. The London Fire Brigade has 12 companies on the scene and is working to contain the fire. The blaze is located in the SoHo district of central London and access for any more fire equipment is greatly hampered by the very narrow streets typical of that neighborhood.
Sky News
All the businesses in that city block have been evacuated as a precaution until the fire is knocked down. There is no authoritative report yet as to the cause of the fire but there are indications that it started in the basement.
The fire broke out around 2 pm local time (9 am Eastern).
The first cellphone video to hit YouTube is available already:
Sky News has filed some helicopter footage of the fire:
Update, 4:30 pm:
The Sun is reporting that the fire has spread to two adjoining buildings:
The inferno gutted at least three six-storey buildings, two of which housed film post-production companies on Dean Street, witnesses said.
Film editor Thomas Urbye, 29, who works opposite the building where the fire started, said he saw smoke pouring out of the windows on a company called First Film Group.
The blaze then spread next door to offices above the Red Fort restaurant and to a third building housing De Lane Lee, which produces soundtracks for movies.
Mr Urbye said: “I could smell burning plastic and when I looked out the window there was smoke pouring out of the windows of First Film Group.
Other sources are reporting that the building where the fire started was historically important because it dates from the early 1730s and has been described as one the best-preserved 18th-century homes in London with historically important murals and staircases.
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