| Guests fled the Northern Hotel in Clerk Street after the alarm was raised shortly after 2.30am, following the discovery of a fire in the kitchen area.
Residents and staff escaped unscathed, but the former 19th century coaching inn — re-opened four years ago after a major refurbishment — was extensively damaged in an incident tackled by more than 30 firefighters from Angus and Dundee.
Tayside Fire and Rescue station manager Martin Tait, the incident commander, praised crews for their response to what he described as a difficult fire to tackle.
Brechin firefighters were first on the scene, and they were joined by an aerial platform from the Macalpine Road station in Dundee and appliances from Forfar and Montrose.
The emergency response also included a command support unit from Dundee and BA support unit from Monifieth’s Balmossie station.
Mr Tait said the ground floor fire had spread into the first floor of the building when crews arrived.
“The manager and eight people were within the property, and they had been evacuated by the time we got here,” he said.
A main jet and three hose reel jets were used to bring the blaze under control.
“The difficulty for us was finding the full extent of the fire because of the lath and plaster construction of the walls,” said Mr Tait.
“There is a lot of smoke damage throughout the building, but the fire could also be smouldering away in other parts of the hotel and we had to be quite aggressive in cutting away.”
Owners of the hotel, Kevin and Julie Mackie, were told of the fire by a 4am text message.
“I was relieved to hear all the guests had been evacuated safely,” said Mr Mackie.
“The fire service reacted very quickly. They saved the hotel and confined the worst of the damage to the kitchen area.
“The assessors have to look at the damage, but the hotel could be closed for at least four or five weeks.”
A fire investigation team will visit the site today to pinpoint how, where and why the fire started. |
