7:10am Saturday 16th August 2008
By Jack Royston
RESIDENTS have described the scene of a “raging inferno” which engulfed a Rayners Lane pub.
Matrix, in Alexandra Avenue, was completely gutted when a fire started at the building at around 3.50am yesterday, and all that remained by the afternoon was a burnt out shell.
Alison Jemal, of Eastcote Lane, who lives opposite, said: “I first heard a noise at about 4am when the firemen were battering their way into the pub.
“There was only a bit of smoke coming out at the time but by the morning it was billowing out of the roof and there were firemen all over the place.
“Because there was only a little bit of smoke in the night I thought it would be out by the morning but it was a raging inferno.”
Parts of Alexandra Avenue and Eastcote Lane were closed yesterday while around 40 firefighters and eight fire engines battled the blaze, which was only brought under control at 11.45am.
While the flames were not visible when the fire brigade arrived on the scene they spread from rooms inside the building to the roof, and before long towered high above the now wrecked pub.
Ken Edwards, 77, of Eastcote Lane, said: “The flames were blowing up quite high and there was quite a lot of smoke as well.
“They had a couple of cherry pickers up so they could shoot water down from above.”
Mr Edwards said he remembered it as it was decades ago, in its hey day, as a respectable local pub where American soldiers from a now closed air base would go to socialise.
But since then he said it declined steadily and had been shut for months before the fire.
He said: “It used to be a good pub back in the old days but I haven't been there for ages. As a friend of mine said, it was a classy sort of place. There was never any trouble.”
An investigation has been launched into the cause of the blaze and firefighters worked into the evening, knocking down chimney pots and other parts of the roof considered unsafe.
But the hours of work put in by the brigade had repercussions for residents living behind the pub, whose gardens filled with water running down from the wreckage.
Mangala Sirwardewa, 42, of Rowe Walk, said: “We just heard a lot of banging and when we looked out of the window there was a lot of smoke coming through.
“We were a bit scared because we thought the fire brigade might ask us to leave.
“We got a bit of flooding from the back and they are saying it's over flow from the pub. It came up to the door step at the back.”
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk