A major fire broke out at Thornton Manor around 9pm Saturday night. A boiler went on fire but the blaze entered the roof space.
Fire crews could be there for a couple of days.
This is the second lot of bad news this week for the popular wedding venue, which has just lost its planning appeal to keep the marquees used in wedding events.
Especially annoying as the boiler fire itself was extinguished pretty quickly before the fire brigade arrived.
Considering the regulations for a the fireproofing of a garage internal to a domestic property you would think a fire certificate for a hotel would include fire isolation of a commercial boiler room.
Difficult decisions for the firebrigade on a property like this, trying to preserve structure and added concern over the amount of water damage. In this country we seem to be more reluctant to smash the roof open than some other countries - I'm not judging which is right and wrong, on every fire they have to make judgement calls which can only be ratified retrospectively, there's always a gamble.
A product that has not been entirely welcomed by the authorities in this country is intumescent paint, if the woodwork in the roofspace was painted with this it would be a lot harder for a fire to take hold or at the very least would slow its progression considerably. The reluctance has been down to some officials not accepting it as an alternative for "proper" fire rated doors etc, nothing to do with roofspaces but if it had been more widely accepted it might have been used more widely and I'm sure the insurance companies would discount appropriately.
That's a lot more damage than I was expecting, makes a complete joke of having a fire certificate