LODDISWELL resident Kevin Smith was invited to meet the Home Secretary after his work at the Exeter fire in October.

Kev, who has worked for the fire service for 20 years, was one of the first firefighters into the Royal Clarence Hotel on Friday, October 28.

‘It was one of the biggest fires I’ve seen in my career, in terms of the devastation’, said Kev, ‘there were already fire fighters working on the art gallery where it started, but four of us were tasked to the hotel.

‘Myself and my colleague were preventing the fire spreading to the hotel while the platform was readied. Two other colleagues were tasked with search and rescue - checking rooms in the hotel that hadn’t yet been cleared.

‘We were standing in a small corridor at the top of the hotel, fighting the fire to the right, and then flames started coming up through the floor and out of the walls behind us, and the ceilings started coming in.

‘As we were checking the floor, I put my hand on the wall and it went straight through, the wall on the other side had collapsed and it was just stud-work and plasterboard. You could look straight down into the fire next door.

‘We could see the platform start working through the roof, and we were running low on air, so we came out and the platform hose took over.’

At 7.30am, the fire in the building where it had started was under control, however there was fire within the roof space above the Well House. Kev and his colleagues were relieved at around 10am.

The incident is described as the largest fire in Exeter since the Second World War. Starting at 5.11am, and declared a major incident at 5.42am, around 150 firefighters were actively involved in the operation and at one point 207 firefighters were on scene.

The fire spread quickly after it got inside voids and spaces created by the age and proximity of the buildings. Investigations as to the cause of the fire are still on-going, with the severity of the blaze making it difficult. There were no casualties of members of the public or firefighters.

To say thank you for the work Kev and his colleagues did on that day, they were taken to meet the Home Secretary Amber Rudd MP.

‘I was due to go on nights that night and got a call at around 10am in the morning asking if I fancied going to meet a VIP, but they didn’t say who. We drove up to Kent that evening and stayed overnight in the Sevenoaks.

‘Due to security, we could be told who or where, but not both, so we knew where we were going, but they wouldn’t tell us who we were meeting, they only told us that night.

‘The next morning we went to a new fire station in Kent that she was visiting. Due to time difficulties she couldn’t come down to Devon, so we went to her instead.’

Kev, along with Chief Fire Officer Lee Howell, Group Manager Bill Harrison, Watch Manager at Middlemoor Fire Station Dave Jones and Watch Manager at Danes Castle Station Lee Blackburn, were all congratulated and thanked by the Home Secretary.

‘She seemed genuine’, said Kev, ‘It was a nice gesture and it was nice to have the evening away.’

If you think you could help the fire service in your area, on-call firefighters are being sought in Kingsbridge, Salcombe, Modbury, Ivybridge, Totnes and Dartmouth.

You must be over 18, able to respond from home or work within five minutes, physically and medically fit with good eyesight and hearing and be prepared for the commitment and discipline of being a firefighter.

You can find out more on the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service website: dsfire.gov.uk/WorkingForUs/