Residents spoke of ‘surreal’ and ‘blitz-like’ scenes as 100 Weymouth homes were evacuated on Sunday morning due to a garage blaze.

Firefighters were called to the building in Holly Road just before 5am yesterday.

A major incident was declared after it was established the garage contained acetylene cylinders.

The presence of the cylinders meant a 100m evacuation zone was put in place and residents were woken up and rushed from their homes.

James Lambert of Holly Road said “big black smoke” was pouring from the garage and people started to panic as they fled their homes.

“At about quarter to five, the police were waking people up, knocking on doors telling everyone to get out.

“I was the first one up and when I looked out the bedroom window I saw huge flames and thick black smoke - like tyres on fire,” he said.

Mr Lambert said when he went outside a ‘popping’ noise could be heard from the fire which caused people to panic.

Mr Lambert had to remain at his home as his mother is disabled and was unable to leave but his father, 72-year-old John Lambert evacuated with the family dog.

He said: “Everyone was rushing down the road. The people at the Florian Guest House were handing out water and tea and coffee. There was this big fire and smoke and police vehicles everywhere - it felt like to the blitz.”

Another Holly Road resident said the ordeal was “unbelievable” and “very surreal” as she had to flee her home with a young family.

“When a policeman knocked at the door and told us we had to leave I just couldn’t get my head around it. The police said there was a major incident with five fire engines.

“We have young children and we had to get out. It took a while to get ourselves together. As we left we saw people standing around in their dressing gowns. It was very surreal.”

Approximately 45 firefighters from Weymouth, Portland, Dorchester, Maiden Newton and specialist support vehicles were sent to the scene.

A rest centre was set up by Dorset County Council and several guesthouses including the Florian B&B and the Rock pub opened their doors.

Manager of the Rock, Aaron Grant-Jones said he could see the blaze from his house which is close to the garage.

“The whole roof was ablaze. I could see the wooden supports holding it up just burning away. The whole area of brick work under the pitch suddenly just fell into the alleyway - that’s when police started evacuating.”

Mr Grant-Jones opened up the Rock and said it “snowballed” from there.

“In the end we had about 50 people in here - it was really odd seeing everyone in their pyjamas in the pub,” he said.

Several residents extended their gratitude to Landlord, Steve Parker and his staff who put on teas, coffees and bacon sandwiches for evacuated residents and even had bacon sandwiches taken out to firefighters once people were allowed to return home.

“They were absolutely brilliant,” one resident said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

Two volunteers from the British Red Cross were called to assist, providing baby clothes to one family and escorting another back to their home to collect medication.

Volunteer Barrie Hampson said: “We were there to reassure people about their worries. It’s obviously a shock being woken up and evacuated from your home in the middle of the night.”

The cause of the fire is still unknown but fire investigators and Dorset Police crime scene investigators were seen at the garage on Sunday.

Firefighters managed to bring the fire under control just before 8am but remained at the scene through the morning. Some residents were allowed to return to their homes just after 8am and Holly Road residents just before 10am.