Firefighters tackle huge blaze in former Ipswich courthouse

Firefighters were called to the blaze in the former crown court building in Civic Drive at about 7am on Friday after receiving reports of thick black smoke coming from a derelict building. 

The southbound carriageway of Civic Drive was closed off by police as emergency services attend the incident. 

Huge number of emergency services in Ipswich (Image: Charlotte Bond)

Firefighters were called to the scene this morning (Image: Charlotte Bond)

Pictures have shown the scale of the emergency service call out to the scene. 

Six appliances from across the county were called to help put out the blaze. 

Speaking to BBC Radio Suffolk, group manager Conrad Burgess said: "We are still in attendance at the old court building on Civic Drive and we still have six fire engines on scene which roughly equates to 30 to 35 firefighters. 

Police closed Civic Drive (Image: Charlotte Bond)

The fire broke out in the old court house (Image: Charlotte Bond)

"Currently we believe we have got the fire situation under control.

"We put out a small fire on the ground floor and we are now in a position where we are doing a search and rescue just ensuring we have cleared the building from any fire we may or may not have found at this stage and clearing the building of smoke, as we can then go in and investigate the cause of the fire, because as of this stage, we are still unsure. 

"It is an unused building at the moment and we did treat it as if there was somebody in there, but that really was precautionary as those who are local to the area will know that people do tend to use it as a place when sleeping rough outside the building, so we just wanted to make sure that nobody had gone inside to stay out of the cold."