The Golden Lion, Worle Pub, Thousands of Pounds of Damage, Grease Exhaust Fire, Somerset, England

Fire at Worle pub

05 June 2008

Scott Thompson in the pub kitchen

FIRE ripped through the kitchen of a Worle pub, leaving the landlords with thousands of pounds worth of damage.

The blaze at The Golden Lion in High Street started at the deep fat fryer and ended up destroying more than half of the cooking facilities.

Fire crews were called to the watering hole at around 3pm on May 27 and the entire pub had to be evacuated as flames engulfed the kitchen and temperatures soared.

Landlord Scott Thompson, who runs the pub with his brother Marcus, was upstairs doing the accounts when the alarm was raised.

The 27-year-old said: "My brother's girlfriend called up to me to say there was a fire in the kitchen.

"It was only a small one to start with so we put a fire blanket over the flames but then that caught light as well.

"Being the fire marshal I asked for the building to be evacuated and phoned the fire service.

"When it got here I went back into the building to show fire fighters where the problem was. Between us we used four fire blankets and all the canisters of powder they had, along with the ones in the pub, to put it out.

"It took more than an hour to extinguish it. There were flames up to the ceiling.

"We weren't allowed back to stay upstairs in the pub that night either because of all the smoke.

"The whole kitchen will have to be refitted at a cost of thousands. More than half of it was completely burnt out.

"We hope to be back to normal by the start of July when we will have a relaunch and opening night.