Fire crews battle to save 900 year old church
Oxfordshire County Council Fire And Rescue Service were called to reports of smoke coming from the roof of St Mary The Virgin Church, Charlbury, of which some parts date back to the 12th Century.
The call was received at around 12.30 pm on Sunday the 12 February. Once the initial fire engines got to the church, they were confronted with large volumes of smoke coming through the tiles on the church roof.
Initially crews were sent into the church with Breathing Apparatus and High Pressure water jets. It soon became apparent that the fire was spreading and they would need more resources to deal with the incident.
Due to the high volume of smoke inside the church it proved extremely difficult to locate exactly what was on fire. The crews reported seeing flames above them and a decision was then taken to tackle the fire from above, as well as from inside. Once a fire has taken a hold of a roof, it is notoriously difficult to deal with it.
Fire crews began removing parts of the tiled roof forming a break trying to stop it spreading into the main roof. At this stage eight fire engines and three specialist vehicles were involved.
Incident Commander John Nixon said: “For the first hour of the incident Fire Crews worked extremely hard to locate and prevent the fire engulfing the entire structure”.
“Once access was gained into the roof we began to make headway and mitigate the damage”.” I believe we caught the blaze in time and prevented the entire structure being lost”
“It is expected our involvement will last late into the night as we will be carrying out salvage work and Fire Investigation.”
Crews from Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Witney, Banbury, Oxford, Kidlington, Eynsham and Hook Norton attended the incident.
The cause of the fire is still yet to determined.
