Little Sark residents 'ran out of water' in fire

Residents in Little Sark ran low on water, with some "temporarily running out", during a major fire, Sark's presiding officer says.

More than 400 tonnes of water was used to extinguish a fire on the island's south cliffs last Friday. Sark does not have any mains water, with supplies taken from private wells and boreholes.

Paul Armogie, Speaker of Chief Pleas and marketing director at Stocks Hotel, said supplies were "coming back, albeit slowly" to affected homes.

He said the response to the major incident showed the island's volunteer fire service was "well organised" and "well trained".

Armogie said: "I'm sure that when the dust has settled on this, that the fire service will review the way in which they tackle the fire, the lessons that they learned from it, what can be done better in the future.

"Somebody suggested to me, and I'm no expert, that perhaps to have a couple of really powerful water pumps that could perhaps draw sea water up from the bottom of the island onto the top of the island, that might be a way forward.

"I don't know how practical that is as a solution."

Stocks Hotel was one of two properties to offer water from their swimming pool.

Sark Fire and Rescue Service said it did not need Stock's pool water.

"There were other sources of water that he could call on, perhaps more immediately," Armogie said.

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