Behind the headlines: Fighting the Sark fire

SARK’S first major incident since its emergency services were established 70 years ago was declared last Friday. 

A fire on Little Sark was first reported at 11am, with the first 999 call being picked up in Jersey before Guernsey’s Joint Emergency Services Control Centre took over to handle the incident.

By midday, the volunteer Chief Officer of Sark Fire and Rescue Service had declared the blaze a “major incident” – sparking a domino effect which included Guernsey firefighters being shipped across to help out.

In total, an estimated 20,000 square metres were scorched, with approximately 400,000 litres of water needed to extinguish the flames.

The Chief Fire Officer and two of the men who were first on the scene took some time out to tell Laura Clayton what happened…

Hairdresser Aimee Perree was doing a friend’s hair at home when she heard the fire crackling. It was in the next field along from her garden.

Having reported the fire, Sark’s volunteer Fire and Rescue Service crew members were then alerted. One of them happened to live next door to the Perree family.

Sark builder Glen Williams was at home, working with his stepson Ollie Rapkin, when he was called to the fire station, which is on the main island, a few minutes away by bicycle.

Jumping on his bike and going around the side of his house to get to the road, Glen realised he could hear the fire crackling. It was approaching his neighbour’s house.

Calling out to Ollie and plumber Karl Rang, who was also doing some work at his house, Glen rushed off to get a makeshift water tender that was already in Little Sark.

The Sark fire crew had put it there last year while work was being done to repair the Coupee after a rockfall, reducing the weight that could cross the bridge temporarily.

In the meantime, Ollie and Karl had jumped on a tractor and driven into the burning field before tackling the blaze using a garden hose.

Members of the extended Perree family were also fighting the fire at this initial stage.

“You see your friend’s house going up [in flames]… me and Karl, neither of us are on the fire brigade, but you just jump to attention, don’t you?” said Ollie. “We didn’t do anything that no one else wouldn’t do.”

He added: “It’s the same if we were working the other side of the island and it wasn’t a close mate’s or our house, it’s the same crack, isn’t it? We’re still going to do it.” 

Ollie acknowledged that after he had gone into the burning field, he did look back and take in the gravity of the situation. 

“That’s the first time I’ve been in that position because I’ve never done any of the training before,” he said.

“Even just getting down to the bottom of the field and turning back around and sort of seeing it, that’s where it was in my head, like, yeah, this is real, this is actually happening now.”

Glen was quickly back on the scene with the makeshift water tender, but that supply was soon depleted, and they were waiting for the rest of the fire crew to turn up with the island’s water tenders.

It was just minutes but it felt like ages, they said.

Sark Fire and Rescue Service Chief Officer Kevin Adams, volunteer firefighters and other volunteers were all on the scene very soon after 11am.

Taking in the situation, Kevin quickly realised that he would need help from Guernsey – and that they needed to find as much water as they could to get on top of the flames.

As Sark doesn’t have any mains water, its residents rely on bore holes and stored water supplies. What was available on Little Sark was very quickly exhausted.

The community rallied to offer up water supplies from various sources on ‘big Sark’, including emptying swimming pools to donate to the firefighting effort.

While 50 people are estimated to have been involved at the fire site itself – a tenth of Sark’s total population – tens more were supporting the efforts in various ways.

This included sourcing the water that was being used to put out the fire, collecting and transporting it, filling petrol tanks up to keep the tractors and tenders moving, coordinating traffic across the Coupee, collecting and transporting the firefighters from Guernsey, looking after children and pets, and doing other jobs so that those fighting the fire could focus their attention there.

The ones at the fire were facing high temperatures – and while some of them were wearing safety equipment, some were just in shorts and t-shirts. It was a very hot day already, and with the heat from the fire, there was a risk of dehydration.

Someone had thought of that, though with crates of bottled water delivered along with cans of Red Bull to stave off tiredness. 

Glen said: “When it did eventually slow down, there were a few ice cream runs too.”

Kevin added:“It’s a community effort, it really is. To be honest, people were itching to come. 

“You just want to be part of something that is huge. They want to be part of something that’s happening, just to say you are taking part and you want to finish it.”

He continued: “I was saying I don’t know where the [bottled] water kept coming from.

“I know tractors were turning up with boxes full of stuff, and this is where you don’t want to single out anybody because you know you’re going to miss somebody, because there must have been over 100 people involved and more.

“Even if they didn’t do it in one place, they went to the shops to go and buy a whole load of bacon so they can make some bacon sarnies, and the shop said ‘no charge, thank you’, so they’ve all helped.

“They helped with the drinks, the Red Bulls, the food, so I don’t want to single anybody out because it is just so vast.”

The fire was officially out by Friday night, but the Sark Fire and Rescue Service kept a crew at the Silver Mines all weekend.

A few patches flared up over the weekend, and there were still signs of ‘hot spots’ days later.

By Tuesday, with Sark looking parched after weeks without rain, the fire crew was still monitoring the site – with containers of water ready to go in case the fire flared up again.

The official cause of the blaze will never be known, but Kevin thinks it was probably down to sunlight reflecting off glass that was buried within the furze.

Now that around two hectares have been cleared by the fire, the amount of litter that was previously buried is clear to see.

“I started thinking about [how the fire began] right at the start, because you’re trying to think, ‘Where is the spark point? What started it?’ because you need to work out if it’s going to happen again,” said Kevin.

“I don’t think we’d ever be able to work it out, but the majority of it is going to be sunlight on something that’s reflected, and it could be a piece of glass. 

“That’s the trouble with beauty spots – you put a bench there so people can enjoy the view, but you took a photograph of an empty tin of sardines and a bottle of champagne and stuff.

“So unfortunately, we’ve picked them up, but they’ve been discarded and they would have been buried. And that’s not bespoke for Sark. That’s everywhere.”

It’s not just rubbish that’s been uncovered by the fire, either.

The blaze revealed what is believed to be a German dug trench, a section of Occupation-era wall, and previously undocumented ‘Jerry stakes’.

A bunker that no one knew about has also been uncovered. Its exact location is not being shared because members of the public are asked to stay away for safety reasons, as it has not been explored in more than eight decades.

When the firefighters realised they had found a bunker, and also some bullets, they did wonder if the common and cliff face might be mined.

This land has been covered in thick gorse and furze for decades, meaning no one has walked across it since the Germans.

Deciding to declare the fire a “major incident” was not a choice Kevin made lightly.

With his family history on the island stretching all the way back to Helier de Carteret, there is probably not much about what has gone on previously that he does not know.

The Sark Fire and Rescue Service was founded in the 1950s, with the initial training carried out by a man who had worked as a firefighter during the Blitz.

A retired fireman moved to the island in the 1980s and trained more volunteers, including Kevin.

Despite two fatal fires, in 1969 and 2010, a major incident had never been declared before – and Kevin said he never thought it would happen.

Within an hour of getting to the Little Sark fire last Friday, he knew he had to make that call.

There were actually two fires, one nearer the Silver Mines and one nearer the Sark Snack Shack – and very close to one of the Perree family homes.

The two fires were separated by a valley, and the worry was that they would grow wildly out of control if the two blazes managed to join up.

That never happened, as Sark’s firefighters, supported by a crew from Guernsey, were able to put the flames out.

In total, it’s estimated that the fires covered two hectares, with Digimap due to work out exactly how large it was.

Kevin estimated that 400,000 litres of water were used to fight the flames – equating to 87,912 gallons, or 704,000 pints.