Eyewitnesses today told of the moment they watched flames envelope the Black Country’s former Langley Maltings brewery.

Families left their homes to watch as the landmark Grade II-listed building in Western road, Oldbury burnt into the night sky.

 See more pictures of the Langley fire in our photo gallery below and read more here.

Student Lyndsay Ward, aged 18, also from Arthur Street, said: “I found out by speaking to my cousin on the internet. I was just getting ready to go to bed and then he said the factory was going up.

“I didn’t know which one it was. When I turned up all three of the towers were up in flames and then first the middle one went before the ones either side.

“Sparks from the flames were flying everywhere, it was quite scary.”

Mick Greasley, aged 67, from Arthur Street, Oldbury, said: “I found out about it just after 10.30pm. My grandchildren were watching it out of the bedroom window.

“There were three towers and a lot of flames, we could just see the water over the factory trying to put out the flames.”

Stephan Hadley, aged 18, who lives in Thompson Road, watched the fire unfold from nearby Vicarage Street. He said: “I looked out of my bedroom window and I could see the flames.

Ferocious

“I knew which factory it was because it is so old, it has been there for years. It’s something that people don’t like, this has been waiting to happen.”

The blaze has echoes of the ferocious fire that destroyed Wolverhampton’s Springfield Brewery in August 2004.

Arsonists were to blame for the inferno, which was tackled by 100 firefighters at its height. The site has laid derelict five years on since the blaze with no current prospects for development.

Yesterday’s is the latest incident to hit the Langley Maltings factory. In May this year a man had to have his arm amputated after suffering a massive electric shock while trying to steal copper from the factory.

The theft triggered a power cut.

Last January arsonists targeted the factory damaging its ground floor.