WSFRS wants to thank the community in Selsey for their support to the emergency services that dealt with the major fire at The Selsey Academy on Sunday morning.
Despite the efforts of firefighters large parts of the school have suffered extensive structural damage and much of its contents have been lost or destroyed.
The school is a community asset at the centre of life in the Manhood peninsular and we extend our best wishes to the academy, teachers, school children, and users of its facilities as it attempts to recover from Sunday’s fire.
The fire was one of the largest attended by WSFRS in recent years and required a significant amount of resources. As well as the crews from West Sussex and Hampshire at the scene it also involved a large and constantly changing number of fire appliance standby moves to maintain fire cover across the county, all of which had to be managed by operators in the Sussex Control Centre. There are no ‘borders’ for the fire service and resources for these backfilling moves were drawn in from Surrey and East Sussex as well as Hampshire.
At this stage we believe the most likely cause of the fire was accidental ignition caused by a workman carrying out maintenance on the roof.
There is no evidence to support online speculation that this was arson.
The first of more than sixty 999 calls made to the Sussex Control Centre was from a roofer to say a partition on the roof was alight at 07:54.
Three crews from Chichester, Selsey, and Bognor arrived within minutes of each other at 08:10, 08:11 and 08:12 respectively.
They were confronted with a severe and rapidly developing roof fire which was being fanned by strong winds. Much of the central part of the school was quickly involved with a large plume of dense smoke blowing across Selsey resulting in burning embers falling on adjacent buildings including two thatched properties. These were protected by firefighters spraying them with compressed air foam to prevent the thatch igniting.
Additional resources were requested and at its height the fire service had 14 fire engines, 2 Aerial Ladder Platforms (ALP) and other specialist vehicles in attendance for water supplies, charging cylinders for breathing apparatus, and incident command. The nearest resources for this included two fire engines from Hampshire (Emsworth and Havant) plus a further ALP from Southsea. Approximately 75 firefighters and officers were involved with more attending as relief crews during the day and throughout the night.
A ‘Stop’ message was sent at 23:13 on Sunday night which stated 75% of the school had been destroyed by fire. Firefighters used 32 sets of breathing apparatus, 5 water jets, 2 CAFS jets, 3 monitors, 2 ALP monitors, 2 hydrants, and a portable dam. The electric and gas supplies were also isolated.
Dealing with such an incident requires a multi-agency approach and as well as being supported by neighbouring fire services WSFRS worked closely alongside colleagues from the Police, SECAmb, West Sussex County Council, building control officers, representatives from TKAT and the school, utility companies, and local community leaders. All of us were supported by two teams of Red Cross volunteers providing refreshments for emergency responders and there was also fantastic support from the local community including a group of local mums and a scout group providing additional food and drinks to those working at the scene.