The 5-star inferno
Stars flee blaze that hit luxury hotel days after £185m revamp
A FIRE dramatically engulfed one of Britain’s most luxurious hotels yesterday, a week after it had completed a £185million refurbishment.
Singer Robbie Williams was among the guests evacuated from the mandarin Oriental Hotel in central London as 120 firefighters and 20 engines fought to tackle the blaze.
Holly Candy, the former pop star wife of billionaire property developer nick Candy, tweeted that the 115-year- old building ‘went up in seconds’.
Plumes of thick black smoke were seen billowing across the capital’s skyline from the 12-storey, £600-a-night hotel on William Street, Knightsbridge.
Flames could be seen around the top of the hotel and extended ladders were raised to reach the blaze.
Police evacuated buildings and cordoned off surrounding roads, which were busy with shoppers from nearby Harrods, as staff gathered in Hyde Park. There were no reports of injuries and the cause of the fire is yet to be established.
A member of staff who works in the hotel’s restaurant said: ‘my friend who’s a police officer in the building at the moment said it was the air conditioning.’
And a tradesman working at the hotel said he saw a ‘big fire’ on the roof before raising the alarm.
The 19-year-old lift engineer, who gave his name as Harry, said: ‘I said [ to my colleague], “Lee, there’s a fire over there, let’s get out of the building. Get out the lift shaft, I’m being serious.”
‘We ran down the stairs and went and got the scaffolder out of the loading bay.’
He said builders on the roof had been cutting materials and doing other work during the day. ‘I could see the orange flames on the roof,’ he added.
Pop star Williams, 44, was one of the high-profile guests caught up in
‘Went up in seconds’
the blaze, which broke out just before 4pm. In dramatic footage posted by a fellow hotel guest on social media, the singer could be seen dashing down the fire escape before giving a thumbs-up outside.
meanwhile, a member of staff said she did not evacuate immediately because yesterday was the day for the weekly fire drill.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said: ‘Today was fire alarm training so when the alarm went we didn’t move for about two minutes. But when we saw the guests going and the alarm carried on we thought we’d better get out. We saw the fire, it was pretty huge. There were flames coming out of the building on the Knightsbridge side.’
London Fire Brigade station manager Pam Oparaocha said yesterday: ‘The smoke from this large fire was very visible across central London and we received a number of emergency calls.’
She added that firefighters were working extremely hard to bring the fire under control, while crews wearing breathing apparatus were searching inside the building.
She said fire investigators would take over to establish how the blaze started once the fire was under control.
Paramedics attended but London Ambulance Service said it had not treated any patients.
The five- star hotel completed the ‘most extensive restoration in its 115-year history’, according to a statement published by owner mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.
The 18-month project, which included refurbishing all 181 bedrooms and suites, is reported to have cost £185million.
The Queen used the hotel to host a gala dinner on the eve of the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.
She also learned to dance with her sister, Princess margaret, in the venue’s ballroom, the hotel group says.