Blaze at Samaritans base

CHARITY volunteers were back taking crisis calls within hours of a blaze ripping through the roof of their Worthing base.

Firefighters climbed through a hole in the roof of the burning Samaritans branch in Lennox Road yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon to stop flames spreading and destroying the end of terrace house.

But workers were back manning the phones just two hours after the blaze started at around 12.45pm.

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Samaritans branch director Heather said: "The two volunteers who were on at the time are back on duty.

There is considerable damage to the roof, but the office where we take the calls was undamaged, so it's business as usual."

Talking about the cost of repairs, Heather said: "We are hoping it will all come out of insurance, but these things take a long time. We are going to have to put a lot of effort into fund-raising, so any help would be much appreciated."

Fire officials told the Herald they believed the blaze was started by builders who were working on wiring in the roof.

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Press officer Gary Towson said: "We will be carrying out further investigations, but, from our initial enquiries, it appears the cause of the fire was accidental."

More than 35 firefighters from Worthing, Shoreham, Arundel and Lancing were on the scene when the blaze was at its worst.

The main road into town was closed by police, bringing traffic to a standstill.

An onlooker said: "I was in a caf close by. We had been watching work going on in the roof for quite a while and were astonished to see smoke billowing through the roof.

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"After a while the smoke was enveloping the roof and then we saw flames coming out the roof. It was so smoky it must have been horrendous for the firefighters."

The fire was out at around 1.25pm and firefighters requested bottled water be taken to the site due to the heat. Ambulance crews were on standby throughout but no one was injured and nobody needed to be treated for smoke inhalation.

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