Littered glass bottles may have started Sark fire

A chief fire officer says he believes a fire on Little Sark on Friday, which needed more than 400 tonnes of water to be brought under control, was started by discarded glass bottles.

Kevin Adams, Sark's chief fire officer, said they had found glass bottles that had been "thrown into the scrub" near where there was seating for visitors to look at the landscape.

"I would say it's glass that's reflected and started the fire, because we had two fires going, they weren't joined, they were two separate fires, and then by sort of four o'clock we were fighting in six different sectors," he said.

He added the biggest difficulties the fire service faced was access and water.

Guernsey firefighters had travelled over on Saturday to help bring the fire under control.

Adams said members of the Sark Fire and Rescue Service who lived on little Sark had continued to monitor the situation.

"We've left appliances with them and they've been doing a every couple of hours rotation, checking it over and dampening down any hot spots," he said.

"We're in charge of the fire... now as opposed to the fire being the master."

Adams said the fire service monitored the last major fire in Sark in 2017, which was caused by a disposable barbecue, "on and off for six weeks".

He said he would not be surprised if it was similar timeframe during this fire due to it being warm and dry.

"We only need a sniff of a little bit of a spark or an ember and then off we go again," he said.

Adams said the biggest issue had been getting water to the area.

He said: "I think we've probably used over 400 tonnes of water. We use about 20,000 gallons of storage tanks in Little Sark but once you've exhausted them you're then coming back to Big Sark.

"Every drop of water has to come across La Coupée... it's been a herculean effort by the whole of Sark."

He said: "We emptied the Miguel swimming pool, we've emptied the fire station underground system, which continually refilled and we emptied that three times.

"Others brought water from their own properties with the 1,000 litre IBC containers."

Adams said at one point there were more than 50 people at the fire scene.

"I'd like to thank everybody on Sark... people have made sandwiches, sent drinks out... so it was a true Sark effort," he said.

"My fire crew were fantastic, we did 30 hours non-stop.

"I'll be back down there later... with another crew to inspect and keep an eye on it."

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