28/10/2016 Spotlight

The huge fire at The Royal Clarence Hotel in the centre of Exetdr

has tonight spread onto the High Street.

The blaze started inside an art gallery on Cathedral Grden

just after five o'clock this morning.

It's thought the flames had been brought under control,

the fire spread to the historic Royal Clarence Hotel next door.

Guests have described being evacuated from the buhlding

More than 100 firefighters have now been battling the blaze

Spotlight's John Danks is at the scene with the latest

There's still a lot of firefighters here, more than 100, with 26 pumps,

some of them coming from Dorset I have told. You can see that they are

using aerial platforms to try and attack the blaze from above.

Thousands of gallons of watdr have been pumped onto the fire throughout

the day, some of that coming from the river Exe. South-west w`ter have

been asking customers not to use too much water. As Harry Bradsh`w

reports, this is a fire that has swept through the historic city

centre of Exeter. The landscape of the city,

changed for ever. This is one of Exeter's most iconic

buildings, dating back centtries. I don't like seeing

anything like this. It's devastating, absolutelx

devastating. I've had the privilege to go behind

the cord. The firefighters

are incredibly brave. They have been fighting this

all day, and you can see, some of them are literally

out on their feet. The main thing is, they stax safe,

and we have got the ambulance crews The scene that Exeter woke tp

to this morning. Following a loud, sharp

alarm just after 5am, More than 100 firefighters have been

at the scene dealing with the blaze whilst people were evacuated

from neighbouring buildings. My dad called up to say that we had

got to evacuate. So I got changed, and I went

downstairs, and it sounded like it was raining

because of all the crackling. And so I quickly opened the door

and I saw the huge smoke and ash coming from the building and then

I saw these great, orange flames. We didn't realise

it was a real fire. We just thought it was an error

in the system and we all rushed out. And of course we immediatelx

realised, because we came ott of the hotel and there was falling

debris, burning stuff coming down. Everyone got out of the hotdl,

and it's a shock, It looked like the fire

was contained, but that changed It's incredibly difficult

for two reasons. The first reason is

the structural integrity. The second reason is the agd

of the building and the number What we have here is a very,

very old building, timber frame with very high fire loading

which makes it very difficult What we have is an island

of medieval builders behind us. We lost 25% of the city

during the Blitz. Lots during the development

of the 60s and 70s. This is the key to the ancidnt

part of Exeter. The emergency services have been

here for hours and they expdct to be A short time ago I spoke to the

incident commander, who said they were trying to stop the fird

spreading further. There's a number of seats fhre,

and we've had a lot of floors collapsing, and that obviously

causes other seats of fire, so you have got a number of fires burning

in there at the moment. And we keep getting fires

tracking across the voids. The roof voids.

That is our main focus The Royal Clarence was

the first venue in England to call itself a hotel.

It dates back to 1769. Beatrix Potter stayed

there in the late 1800s It's been a terribly

black day for the city. It's where lots of

functions take place. Well, of course the city

will recover, because we have that spirit, and hopefully, it whll be

a little bit of a long time, This evening there have been some

reports that the fire has spread to the high Street, to Costa coffee.

Fire officers say that they are keeping an eye on the integrity of

the building. One encouraging Capote that there have been no cracks

appearing on what is now effectively the shell of this hotel.

To other news now and a man has been jailed for two years,

for driving his car at his dstranged wife and their child in the Royal

The court was shown this dr`matic CCTV footage of 55-year-old

Mark Wiggins ramming the victim's car.

Wiggins also struck a member of hospital staff

A long-awaited Government rdport on the future of Plymouth Ahrport

has concluded that it would be unable to operate

passenger services without a subsidy.

Campaigners fighting to re-open the airport have admitted

they would need ?9 million of Government support

But they claim they could h`ve it up and running by 2020,

despite the fact no subsidies are available.

On to the weekend weather now and here's Bee.

Good evening. We have a fairly quiet weekend of whether I had. Lhke

today, we will hear -- will see some early mist and fog, and gendrally

the weekend will be rather cloudy. It will be staying mild with

temperatures above well you would expect for the time of year.

Tonight, quite quiet with some low cloud and places and the odd spot of

Brazil. Most places will be dried. With that cloud cover, it is not

going to be a cold night. Most places staying in double figures,

some places getting down to eight Celsius. Another great start

tomorrow, again, some mist `nd fog, and it will take time to brhghten

up. The best spells of sunshine to the Lee of any high ground `nd

staying quite mild with temperatures at around 15 Celsius. On Saturday

night, if you're out trick or treating, it should be dry with

increasing amounts of mist `nd fog forming. Staying quite quiet and

mild as we head into next wdek. Have a good night. That's all for now.

Our next news is tomorrow on BBC One at 5:50pm. From all of us on the

late team, good night. to come into the beginning of next

week as well. Now the national picture.

Hello, it's been a pretty good week for getting out and enjoying the

autumn colours, especially if you have seen autumn