Joan’s blaze horror
She’s treated for smoke inhalation after sun reflecting off mirror sparks inferno in flat
DAME Joan Collins said she and her husband Percy Gibson were ‘shell-shocked’ and lucky to be alive yesterday after fire broke out at their London home as they watched a film.
The 85-year-old actress fled barefoot in her pyjamas while her ‘hero’ husband, 53, battled the flames with a portable fire extinguisher.
Firemen told the couple the fire – which gutted the guest bathroom at their Belgravia flat – was started by the sun’s rays reflecting off a mirror, causing curtains and then towels to catch alight.
‘All I can say is that we are very, very lucky to be alive,’ said Dame Joan, who was treated for smoke inhalation. She said Mr Gibson, her fifth husband, was a ‘very perfect hero’ for tackling the blaze single-handedly.
‘He’s very modest, but if he had not gone in with the hand-held extinguisher to douse the curtains and towels, the building would have gone up,’ she added. ‘That’s what the fire brigade told us.
‘Percy was incredibly brave. By the time I had finished dialling 999 the smoke was down to my waist. I had to run out in just my pyjamas and a dressing gown.’
Dame Joan told how they had been watching the Jack Nicholson film As Good As It Gets in their bedroom on Saturday afternoon when smoke alarms went off.
All three emergency services descended on the street – one of the smartest addresses in the capital – after Dame Joan dialled 999. Although Mr Gibson, a theatre and film producer, had managed to extinguish the blaze before crews arrived, the couple were treated at the scene for the effects of smoke inhalation. Their lucky escape comes two years after a ceiling collapsed at the property, forcing them to move out for nearly a year.
‘I’m still putting things back as a result of that,’ Dame Joan said. The fire drama happened three weeks after Mr Gibson discovered the body of the long-serving concierge at their building, she said, adding: ‘We’ve had a rough time of it.
‘But I must thank the emergency services – the fire brigade arrived very quickly and the paramedics took great care of us.’ In tweets also thanking the
‘We are lucky to be alive’
emergency services yesterday, she said: ‘ My hero Percy had already doused the flames consuming the entire wall.’
She described how the ‘ wonderful’ police had closed off the street to keep everyone safe from what she said was a ‘terrifying fire’.
Mr Gibson described the pair as ‘fine but shell-shocked’ as he played down his heroics, insisting he had been a ‘lucky idiot’.
He said of the moment they discovered the fire at around 4.30pm: ‘ My wife is very keen-eared and she heard the alarms beeping. At first we thought it was on the film, but she told me to pause the movie.
‘Then we realised the noise was the smoke alarms. I opened the bedroom door and was confronted with a wall of smoke.
‘I managed to get to the fire extinguisher, which is out in the hall, and although it was good that I managed to put the fire out, it was also incredibly stupid.
‘I could have made things worse for the fire brigade. As they say, the first thing you should do is get out.
‘The firefighter told us later that the mirror happened to be at the perfect angle to reflect the sun coming through the window – it was a complete and utter fluke.
‘The mirror was not usually kept in that particular location. It may have been moved during cleaning.’
London Fire Brigade said: ‘Part of a flat on the first floor of the sevenstorey building was damaged by the fire. Two people left the property before the brigade arrived.’
The Belgravia apartment is one of four homes the couple share. The others are in Los Angeles, New York and the South of France.
In an article for the Daily Mail last month, Dame Joan, who has three children and three grandchildren, described Mr Gibson as her ‘soulmate’ despite their 32-year age gap.