Biggest blaze in Bognor's history at Woolworth's

Mick explained: "Aerosols were going off in the shop because of the heat of the fire and the flames were coming through the windows.

"I'd been a firefighter for six years and it was the biggest blaze I had seen. It remained the biggest fire I ever attended in Bognor in 33 years in the job."

The day was Saturday, the August bank holiday of 1978. It is always the busiest of the holiday weekends in the town.

Mick (now 58) was called to tackle a fire in Yapton during the afternoon.

He and his full-time colleagues became aware of a major incident elsewhere as they were coming to the end of that job.

"We heard the second appliance in Bognor being called to the fire. From where we were in Yapton, we could see a big pall of smoke rising into the sky," he said.

"When we got to the town centre, the police were trying to hold back the bystanders to let the fire engines through.

"Being an August bank holiday, there were a lot of people around."

Mick recalls that the blaze began in the store's stockroom. It had been smouldering for possibly 20 minutes before the alarm was raised.

This delay allowed it to become established by the time firefighters began to arrive. A retained crew from Bognor was first on the scene because the full-timers were in Yapton.

"We went up into the stockroom with our breathing apparatus on," recounted Mick, who lives on the Glenwood estate.

"But we soon discovered that the fire had got such a good grip that part of the ceiling collapsed down into the store taking a lot of burning debris on to the shopfloor. That's how the fire really got going.

"We were withdrawn from the building and it became a case of containment after that. It was an inferno when we came out. We did our best to put out the fire but it had got such a good grip upstairs that it was difficult."

The blaze gutted the store in spite of the fact some 200 firefighters were called to the scene. They maintained a presence for about two weeks because of the risk of the flames starting up again. Smoke could still be seen rising the following day.

Mechanical diggers were brought in to sift through the wreckage. Firefighters were called into action to put out any hotspots which still lingered among the ashes.

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