Skegness Magazine

September 1949

MOST SPECTACULAR FIRE TO OCCUR IN SKEGNESS FOR MANY YEARS

THREE FIRE BRIGADES CALLED OUT

TWO HUNDRED FEET LONG MAIN BUILDING COMPLETELY DESTROYED
The largest building of the Derbyshire Miners’ Holiday Centre at Seathorne was completely gutted as a result of the most spectacular fire to occur in the resort since the late war.
Breaking out in the early hours of last Friday morning, the blaze, when at its height, could be seen from various points in the surrounding country for a distance of over twelve miles.
The main building is two hundred feet long, and a hundred feet wide, and when the Skegness Fire Services, under Station Officer H. T. Breaks arrived on the scene a few minutes after receiving the call at 1.22 a.m., they found flames enveloping the whole of the main building, which is used as a dining hall, containing kitchens and offices, and at the time was being employed as a miscellaneous store for bedding.
FANNED BY THE GALE
The conflagration was fanned by the gale blowing at the time, and flames were sweeping towards sleeping chalets and other buildings not many feet away.
Spilsby and Wainfleet Fire Services were called out to augment the Skegness teams, and it is a striking tribute to the work of all personnel concerned that the fire was brought under control by 2.19 a.m.
A “Skegness News ” reporter was told by an eye-witness: “It was the most spectacular
blaze seen in the resort for very many years. With the help of Spilsby and Wainfleet, the Skegness brigade did a very fine job of work in utterly atrocious conditions.
“The dining hall and cookhouse were in one block, and, in addition, there were some 600 gallons of oil in the cellar. The timbered sides of the buildings, which were creosoted, went up like wildfire, and it was soon evident that there was no chance of saving the building.”

ELECTRIC ORGAN DESTROYED
Fortunately the Fire Services had a splendid supply of water from the nearby mains. Although the fire was extinguished before daylight, the Skegness brigade remained at the scene, keeping up preventive work, throughout Friday.
The loss must inevitably be considerable, and, just as one item, a £2,000 electric organ, which was used for the holiday centre entertainments, was in the centre of the building and utterly destroyed.

The photograph reproduced, taken on the following day by Hudson’s Photo Services, and showing the gutted main building and the wrecked boiler house, strikingly portrays the scene of utter devastation and destruction following the fire.