Altrincham’s Market House is set to be closed for two weeks after a fire caused by an ice-making machine broke out in the early hours of this morning.
Tonight’s New Year’s Eve party is off after the fire caused extensive smoke damage inside the newly refurbished Victorian building.
Nick Johnson, the chief executive of Market Operations and the man behind the market’s regeneration, said he was alerted to a problem at 2.45am.
“The alarm monitoring company rang me and I came straight down,” he told Altrincham Today. “I drove round the building because I thought it was a break-in, but came to the front and there was water coming down the steps so I knew there was a problem.
“There was no evidence of fire at that point until I got inside the building and I then recognised that there was a fire to the left-hand side in what was the pot wash area. So I attempted to put it out with a fire extinguisher but there was too much smoke at that stage.
“I called the fire brigade, they were here within five minutes andgot the blaze under control pretty much straight away. They left about 5 o’clock this morning having secured the site and we’ve started the clean-up.”
Below: Market House this morning
The main physical damage was limited to the pot washing area but the whole of Market House has been affected internally by smoke damage.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire said 15 firefighters from Sale, Altrincham and Wythenshawe fire stations used “four breathing apparatus, one hose reel, two covering jets and a positive pressure ventilation fan to extinguish the fire”.
Johnson said it would have been “a lot worse” had the market’s fire systems not worked effectively, but that it’s likely to be a fortnight before it reopens.
“I think it’s likely to be a couple of weeks,” he added. “The physical side of the work is not extensive and can be easily repaired. The extent of the smoke damage, as it’s affected all parts of the building, is the big question.
“But the great news is that nobody was hurt and there’s no structural damage to the building, and it’s just one of those unfortunate things. It was a piece of commercial equipment that caught fire in the middle of the night. It’s just unfortunate and completely unforeseen.
“It could have been a lot worse – our procedures worked, the automated fire alarm and the alarm monitoring system. The systems were in place to make sure that that exposure was mitigated.”
Johnson advised anyone with a £10-a-head ticket for tonight’s sold-out party to hold on to it.
“It’s such a pity that it’s on New Year’s Eve when a lot of people with very sought-after tickets were looking for a great night out.
“But what we’re offering people is the ability to hold on to their tickets and we’ll have a New Year’s Eve/reopening party in the early part of 2015, to celebrate us reopening.
“Alternatively, if people want their money back they can have their money back, but it was going to Reverse Rett as a charity donation anyway, so it’s entirely up to them.”
Johnson thanked people for the messages of support market had already received on social media.
He added: “We’ve had an amazingly successful three months. We’ve got a bright new year ahead of us, but we’ve just got this minor glitch to get over.
“Already the amount of very generous feedback we’ve had from social media has been phenomenal, and I’m sorry to disappoint those people who were meant to be here for New Year’s Eve, but we will be back.”
