Pub owner and his pregnant wife lucky to escape blaze
THE proprietor of a County Wexford pub has said that only for the quick actions of his brother, the pub would have been lost in a fire which caused extensive damage last week.
Simon Besanson (30) was in the upstairs apartment of Porter’s Bar in Killenagh, near Ballycanew, at 12.45 a.m. on Tuesday morning, having finished cleaning up the pub for the night, when he heard a loud bang downstairs.
‘I turned off the TV, and then the fire alarm went off,’ he said. ‘I turned on the camera monitors, and everything was completely white. At first I thought we were being robbed, but then I could see flames in the corner at the sink.’
He ran downstairs, and seeing how serious the fire was, went straight back upstairs and helped get his pregnant wife Orla, and their two dogs, outside through the thick smoke to safety. He rang the fire brigade, and his parents Thomas and Naomi and his brother Brian (29), who live across the road, were also alerted. ‘Only for Brian, everything would be gone,’ said Simon. ‘He remembered we had three fire extinguishers in the mobile home on site.’
They smashed a window and just sprayed blindly, as they couldn’t see for smoke. ‘We couldn’t even get our hands in,’ he said.
Buckets of water were also thrown in, and most of the danger had passed by the time Gorey fire service arrived on scene.
It’s thought that the fire began in a machine for washing glasses near the sink. Fortunately the flames didn’t spread as far as the bottles of spirits behind the bar. ‘If one of them had exploded it would have been a complete disaster,’ said Simon. ‘We’re so lucky.’
Brian was treated for smoke inhalation afterwards, but apart from that, the family is thankful that no-one was hurt.
Porter’s Bar has been in the family since the 1860s. Simon is the fourth generation of his family to run the pub, having taken over from his parents in 2014. They ran the popular pub for 49 years.
Though there has been extensive damage inside, Simon hopes they will be open again as soon as possible. Simon said they have been inundated with messages of support and offers of help.