Firefighters say a serious blaze at Burnham-On-Sea’s Rosewood pub on Saturday (June 15th) has left ‘significant damage’ to the property.
Crews finally left on Saturday shortly after 9pm, after tackling the blaze for seven hours, and the cause was deemed to be accidental.
“The property has sustained severe damage by fire, heat and smoke,” Devon and Somerset Fire Service’s Group Manager Paul Cregan told Burnham-On-Sea.com.
Multiple fire crews were initially called to Love Lane around 2.30pm following reports of flames and smoke being spotted emerging from the property. The fire started in the kitchen, but there were fortunately no injuries.
The pub said in a social media post: “Due to yesterday’s fire we are now closed until further notice. If you have any questions regarding future bookings please email 8651@greeneking.co.uk and we will get back to you as soon as we can. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Eyewitnesses at the scene described to Burnham-On-Sea.com what they saw: “There was the sound of a bang and then we saw a lot of black smoke billowing from the building, with flames seen in the roof, and smoke drifting towards the nearby Tesco store. Within a few minutes there were many fire appliances and ambulances on scene.”
Burnham’s Love Lane was closed for several hours while crews were at the scene and Burnham’s Tesco store temporarily closed and evacuated its staff and customers as a precaution.
A fire spokesman said: “Three fire appliances from Burnham-On-Sea and Bridgwater, together with an aerial ladder platform from Taunton, were initially mobilised to a fire in the kitchen of a public house. At the time of call fire alarms were activating and Fire Control confirmed that staff were in the process of evacuating staff and customers.”
“On arrival of the first crew they confirmed smoke was issuing from the building and by 2.26pm they requested that the attendance be increased by a further fire appliance, which attended from Cheddar and the Police for traffic duties and to close the road to assist with fire fighting.”
“At 2.31pm crews confirmed the fire was spreading to the roof and increased the attendance to 6 fire appliances, which attended from Street and Taunton, together with a Command Support Vehicle from Wiveliscombe.”
“At 3.15pm the attendance was once again increased by a further 2 fire appliances which have attended from Nether Stowey and Somerton who were providing standby cover at Bridgwater fire station.”
“At 4.40pm crews were making steady progress with the incident sectorised into 4 sectors to allow for the most effective firefighting, due to the fire spread, proximity of the premises to other buildings and the amount of firefighters in attendance.”
”Crews were fire fighting using hose reel jets and covering jets, as well as stripping roof tiles to access the fire, assisted by the aerial ladder platform.”
“The final update was at 9.08pm and the fire was extinguished and the cause deemed to be accidental. The property sustained severe damage by fire, heat and smoke.”
