29/10/2016 Spotlight

Good evening. news at ten o'clock -

After 36 hours, firefighters believe a blaze at a hotel which has stood

in the heart of Exeter for centuries is now under control.

As you may have seen the Royal Clarence today began

to collapse in a square described as of national significance.

We've been at the scene since early yesterday.

First tonight our home affahrs correspondent Simon Hall.

Throughout the night, fire crews fought the blaze.

It was being fed by a ruptured gas main and a danger the fire

could spread to Exeter high street lingered.

As morning came, the gas was stemmed and slowly,

The Royal Clarence is lost, but there is confidence the high

We're certainly in a much better place than we were.

We've made huge strides tod`y and put a lot of resources hnto it

and we are relatively confident that we are dealing

On the other side of the hotel, Exeter high street.

It is the focus of much of the firefighting effort.

Thousands of gallons of watdr were sprayed here to try

This should give you an ide` of how close the fire came

We're standing on the roof of the Laura Ashley building.

Where the scaffolding is, is where the fire started.

where the fire ripped across the roof and then spread

to the Royal Clarence, just there, which as you can see

is just metres from the Laura Ashley building.

There were no deaths and no injuries, except to the historic

heart of Exeter, changed forever in a single weekend.

As you saw in Simon's piece there, the high street was cordoned off

but the rest of the city is said to be open for business.

Johnny Rutherford has been looking at the impact.

The people of Exeter are motrning the loss of one of the beautiful

city -- of their beautiful city This is the historic part of our

fantastic city and all of us love coming here. You'll find thd

Cathedral Green packed with people and families having picnics and

laughing and to see this ancient hotel going up in smoke likd this

breaks my heart. It's not known yet how much money has been lost to

commerce, but the council s`ys it is determined to get Exeter back on its

feet. I think the businesses are very resilient in Exeter. Wd had the

bombs fall on us, we'll get through it as well. A lot of businesses are

suffering, and we waiting for the fire brigade, so we got to lake sure

the structure is safe. Business people in Exeter are very rdsilient

and they will bounce back from this. Shoppers carried on today ddspite

many shops in the high stredt closed. It hasn't affected the high

street completely, but people just seem really sad that it has

happened. Hopefully, people will join together and put the money

together to get it back to `s it was. It is really sad day that the

hotel is gone, but Exeter whll bounce back. Sadly, the Cathedral

will remain closed tomorrow. In the last hour, Simon hall has

sent this from the scene. Firefighters will be working here

throughout the night. Commanders tell us that although they believe

they have the fire contained, they will be damping down hotspots

probably until early next wdek and that is likely to mean some, at

least of the Cathedral Green will remain cordoned off. Commanders say

they hope to reduce the sizd of the cord on.

We will bring you more on that story as we get it across the BBC and the

South West. Now football, and after a ddlay

to Plymouth Argyle's game after what looked like a serious

injury to the referee, they won 2-1. Yeovil Town drew and Torquax

lost to Southport. In the championship,

Cornish Pirates narrowly lost to Rotherham Titans,

but a more convincing win for Plymouth Albion who beat

Loughborough Students 53-15. Perfect for the run-up to H`lloween

- lots of mist in mystery. A lot of cloud out there

through tonight. Much like today,

it is a solid layer. It will lower, so we will sde fog

but a fairly quiet night and quite mild

if your router trick-or-tre`ting, temperatures down

to 11 or 12 Celsius. A grey start to the day tomorrow

night. More brightness compared to today

and the cloud should break tp into the afternoon and

staying mild with the top It looks like it is staying

settled into next week. It turns a little bit cooler

from Wednesday onwards. Good evening, it has been a rather

cloudy but certainly very mild day. In fact where we did see sunshine

breaking through, in Hull for instance, temperatures rose as high

as 19 degrees, more typical of the middle of August and late October.

Things remaining mild and largely dry down to this big area of high

pressure really dominating the weather. Bringing