The Royal Albion fire was probably started by a carelessly discarded cigarette setting fire to a aged window frame in high winds, fire investigators have concluded.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue this week released the initial fire investigation report into the blaze which ravaged the historic seafront hotel last July.
Hotel staff were praised for the speedy evacuation of the building, which meant just one person was injured, and that just from smoke getting in their eyes.
The occupants of room 330, where the fire is believed to have started, had returned to their home in Hong Kong before the fire service was able to talk to them.
But they denied smoking in the room, saying they had simply checked in and left their luggage there before going out to sightsee, about an hour before the fire started.
It’s believed the fire was able to spread quickly from one area to another via hidden voids – which was also a feature of the rapid spread of another blaze which wrecked the Claremont Hotel in Eastbourne in 2020.
The report said: “The man and woman from Hong Kong arrived at the hotel at 456pm. They spent some time in the room before heading out to do sightseeing.
“It cannot be proven that anyone smoked within room 330 but the most probable cause of this fire is a carelessly discarded cigarette, either by one of the occupants of room 330, or by an occupant of a different room who had discarded a lit cigarette out of their window, which had then blown back against the building and nestled within a crack within the dry timber window frame for room 330.
“The exceptionally strong wind speed blowing directly against the window frame then created perfect conditions for fire development and spread.
“It soon engulfed room 330 and beyond due to the readily combustible materials within the walls and ceilings and multiple hidden voids throughout the building, which enabled fast paced smoke travel, highlighted by the fire alarm system report, which reported smoke detection on the first floor of the hotel, even before the arrival of the fire service.”
The report said the fire alarm first went off in room 330 at 5.05pm, and was reset by hotel staff then and again at 5.06pm.
A manual call point – one of the fire alarm boxes mounted on walls – was activated at 5.18pm.
At about 5.20pm, two maintenance staff were sent to room 330 to investigate the fire.
The report says: “They could both smell smoke within the corridor leading up to the room. They entered the room together, there was no one within the room and there was no fire, and nothing unusual, but they could smell smoke.
“There were no reflective objects in or around the window.
“When they looked out of the window, they could see a lot of smoke but no flames coming from the window frame.
“They decided to move to a different position to get a better look, so they moved into a room the next floor up.
“As they looked out of the window from the room, the smouldering fire suddenly became a flaming fire.”
The assistant maintenance manager told the fire investigator people were known to smoke on the window ledges in the hotel and that he would often have to clear away discarded cigarettes found at the base of the hotel, but he had not seen any cigarette butts within cracks in window frames.
The hotel manager told him there was a zero-tolerance police on smoking in rooms.
A week after the Royal Albion blaze, another fire broke out at the Harbour Hotel, 500m west along Kings Road.
The report says: “In very similar circumstances, a wooden windowsill had completely burnt away with no obvious ignition sources.
I spoke with … a maintenance worker there. The original building had been built at the same time as the original buildings that made up the Royal Albion Hotel.
“He showed me an original timber wooden frame which was like the one that had burnt away at the Harbour Hotel.
“It was very similar to the [Royal Albion] window frame, with large open cracks in dry timber, because of age and weathering.”
Looks like someone was trying to finish the job. Surely there must be CCTV nearby.
Yes, people often point their CCTV cameras at random hotel windows.
Especially the rooms with a sea view
I believe a lot of herbal “cigarettes” were consumed in the hotel.
So arguably if the timber had been maintained it would not have caught fire ? (not withstanding that nobody should have been smoking anyway)
Does anyone know if the council (us) has been repaid for the demolition works yet ?
When did they fully ban smoking at this hotel? I stayed here in summer 2020. Didn’t even ask for a smoking room but found myself in one anyway. Always thought that was strange but as a smoker I wasn’t about to complain!
Smoking was banned in 2007, there are no legal smoking rooms in hotels.
I definitely stayed in a smoking room at this hotel in the summer of 2020. There must have been some kind of loophole in the law that allowed some to continue offering them.
It is still permissible to offer smoking bedrooms in the UK. The legislation was about protecting workers from second-hand smoke. There are no workers in your hotel room when you are smoking. However fewer hotels now offer this as the number of smokers has dropped, and non-smokers do not want a smoking room.
Moral of the story, don’t spend money maintaining a property, it will fall down, catch fire or flood. Building insurance requires that an owner has good maintenance or no pay out so Britannia have probably lost this pay out.
Equally why in 2024 is it not law that all properties have double glazing…