Skegness Magazine

Fire at Ward’s Cycle Shop and Garage High Street Skegness

WALLS AND PUMPS RED HOT
FIRE NEAR 400 GALLON PETROL TANK
CYCLE SHOP DESTROYED

ADEQUATE fire-risk precautions, and prompt action by a neighbouring shopkeeper who saw smoke pouring out of Ward’s cycle shop and garage, High Street, Skegness—just as promptly answered by Skegness Fire Brigade—greatly reduced the danger of an explosion from a 400-gallon underground petrol storage tank when fire broke out above it on Friday night.
Although intense heat from the blaze made walls adjoining the petrol tank and pumps red hot, and blistered paintwork on a half-full 100-gallon tank of paraffin, there was no explosion. The cycle shop’s interior was almost burnt out. and three-quarters of the new season’s stock was destroyed or severely damaged: but shops on each side were saved.

The alarm was given shortly before 9 p.m. by Mr. Frederick Parker, watchmaker and jeweller. whose shop adjoins the garage with its underground petrol tank.
“I am usually watching television in the back .at that time,” he said, as firemen tackled the blaze.
“If I had been I might not have noticed until too late. But I was working late on a special job and smelled smoke. Then I heard a crash of glass from next door.

“Just Stocked Up”
“I ran out and saw smoke pouring from a broken glass panel over the door. I knew about the petrol, so I went back to bring out my wife and son, then called the brigade.
“I had just stocked up for the season so I must admit I was never so glad to see anything more than the sight of a fireman up a ladder directing a hose on the connecting wall between the garage and my shop. The wall was red hot before he hosed it.”

The Fire Brigade concentrated on keeping the blaze away from the garage and its dangerous contents. A double-brick wall, a thick door and the fireproof trapdoor to the underground tank helped.
The shop itself and the upper storey workroom and storehouse were very severely damaged. Firemen brought out many brand-new machines, smoke-blackened and twisted, their tyres burned away. But some new cycles and most of those in for repair were saved.

Takings Safe
From the burned-out interior of the ground-floor shop, firemen retrieved a box from under the collapsed counter with more than £30 in it, scorched by the fire and wet from the hoses, but still intact.
It was hire-purchase payment money collected during the week. The takings were undamaged in a fire-proof safe upstairs.
Called out by police after the fire was discovered, Mr. Tom Ward, who, with his father, Mr. P. T. Ward, has run the business on the site for three years, helped in the salvage work.
His father was away for the day at Hunstanton. “Oh dear, what a shock for him when he gets back , said Mr. Ward junior.
But on Monday he was agreeing it could have been worse. While the long job of clearing up and stocktaking was going on, it was almost “business as usual” in the garage, the only usable part of, the premises.

“If the tank had gone up most of the stock might have gone with it,” commented Mr. Ward. “At least it proves our safety precautions do work.”

Source: Skegness Standard 1959