Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier - burning

[_dobbo_]

The Grand Pier, Weston-super-Mare was built in 1903/4 and has for many years been a tourist attraction that brings thousands of visitors to the town each year. It first burned down in 1930 and was rebuilt. In the last couple of years the pier was purchased by a local entrepreneur who spent money refurbishing and revitalising it, and who apparently had big plans for the future.

This morning, I woke to this view out of my window and figured something was up... I live several miles away from the sea front, so the scale of the fire was fairly clear from the outset.



Despite having lived in the town for more than 20 years, I find I have almost no photos of the pier as it was.

You can see it here on November 5th;



And here in the background of this photo:



I'm not a sentimental sort really, but it was sad to see what is an iconic part of the town's history going up in flames.












Directly behind where I was standing taking these photos, Fire crew were working to pump water out of Marine lake, along the full length of the promenade and to the fire. From where I was standing, it was clearly an exercise in damage limitation, there is simply no way they could have controlled the fire.



You can see in this photo the tiny white stream of water in the left hand side



All in all a sad day for Weston. I really hope the Michael family rebuild it.

[pastrana72]

Just seen the BBC News, so sad to see the pier on fire, but your pictures of it are stunning, better than the ones they are using on the News.

I would E-mail some to the news agency's, I expect you could sell the rights to use them some.

Hope they rebuild the pier after the fire, it would be to sad for that not to happen.

[CivicMan]

Our West Pier in Brighton burnt down several years ago. Many shop here sell postcards/prints of it on fire. Your images are very iconic so could be very marketeable. Just a thought.

Damn shame about the loss though.

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

That's a real shame - I hope they'll rebuild without too much delay.

[dan1981]

pastrana72 said:

Just seen the BBC News, so sad to see the pier on fire, but your pictures of it are stunning, better than the ones they are using on the News.

I would E-mail some to the news agency's, I expect you could sell the rights to use them some.

Hope they rebuild the pier after the fire, it would be to sad for that not to happen.

I woulnd't bother with the BBC though - check the T&C's

"In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide. This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or making it available to other UK broadcasters or to the print media"

[Simpo Two]

Nice pix. Piers seem remarkably prone to this - Southend pier burnt down twice in recent times. You'd think with modern fire systems, not to mention 40 million terragallons of water about 20 feet away, they'd be able to deal with it. Hose... pump... How hard can it be?

[_dobbo_]

The thing is the building is roughly the size of a football pitch, and is almost entirely made of wood, and certainly wont have a modern fire system.

The pier does have a water supply but I guess by the time the fire brigade got there the fire had taken hold and couldn't be controlled. I'm off down again in a few minutes to see what is left. The sea water wasn't accessible due to the famous Weston mud...

Here's a panoramic, clicky for bigger.



I wish I could have had longer to stay there and record what happened in more detail.


edit to fix the link

Edited by _dobbo_ on Monday 28th July 20:46

[Simpo Two]

Maybe I should design piers. I'd add a seawater pipe up each leg with a big pump. Fire starts, switch the pumps on - voila - biggest fountain in history, fire out in 10 secs

[Stigmundfreud]

nice shameful captures dobbo. I used to live in Worle and loved Weston, in fact, considering buying a 2nd place there in the future as i miss the place.

OT but seeing as you are quite local you know what your rig shots need? A monaro

back on topic was gutted (sorry!) to hear this today as had many fun days on the pier. If I was still living there I'd have called in work to be late and spent a few hours shooting it.

[_dobbo_]

Simpo Two said:

Maybe I should design piers. I'd add a seawater pipe up each leg with a big pump. Fire starts, switch the pumps on - voila - biggest fountain in history, fire out in 10 secs

good idea, now you just need a time machine to go back to 1903 when they built this one!

Submit your design to the owners, assuming they get the insurance money hopefully they'll be looking to rebuild!

Stigmundfreud said:

nice shameful captures dobbo.

Stigmundfreud said:

OT but seeing as you are quite local you know what your rig shots need? A monaro

YHM...

[Simpo Two]

_dobbo_ said:

good idea, now you just need a time machine

Actually that's taking a litle longer. But I suppose that if I succeed, I can make the time taken shorter... I s'pose...

[Stigmundfreud]

by shameful I meant shame it was burning they are full of shame

of course you have sold your images to agencies havent you?

[_dobbo_]

Guilty conscience on display there - I felt a bit shameful taking them. But it happened and I recorded it, no real shame in that I guess.

After it was suggested I submit to some agencies, I had a look around. The only one I could find easily was Reuters who wanted a phone number but the website wouldn't accept a UK format number. I had no idea where else to look and no time to find out. By the time I got home later today I figured it was too late to bother - the front page of the Evening post has a flipping amazing photo on it (full page colour image) so I decided I'd not bother investigating further after seeing that.

[_dobbo_]

Went back to have a look at the aftermath - not pretty. Fire crews still working hard and the beach closed for hundreds of yards in each direction.

Another panoramic so click for bigification.



Interesting to note that the tower still standing (see above in the post by S. Gonzales Esq.) is the right hand front tower, one of four towers that were on each corner of the main structure. It's apparently where the fire started, which to me is surprising that it's the only one of the four that survived the fire without collapsing.

[Stigmundfreud]

_dobbo_ said:

Went back to have a look at the aftermath - not pretty. Fire crews still working hard and the beach closed for hundreds of yards in each direction.

Another panoramic so click for bigification.



Interesting to note that the tower still standing (see above in the post by S. Gonzales Esq.) is the right hand front tower, one of four towers that were on each corner of the main structure. It's apparently where the fire started, which to me is surprising that it's the only one of the four that survived the fire without collapsing.

i am sure you can get that in local press, or even sell it as prints on the front if you get some printed pronto

[pastrana72]

dan1981 said:

pastrana72 said:

Just seen the BBC News, so sad to see the pier on fire, but your pictures of it are stunning, better than the ones they are using on the News.

I would E-mail some to the news agency's, I expect you could sell the rights to use them some.

Hope they rebuild the pier after the fire, it would be to sad for that not to happen.

I woulnd't bother with the BBC though - check the T&C's

"In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide. This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or making it available to other UK broadcasters or to the print media"

I did not realise that, thanks for the tip.

[pastrana72]

_dobbo_ said:

Went back to have a look at the aftermath - not pretty. Fire crews still working hard and the beach closed for hundreds of yards in each direction.

Another panoramic so click for bigification.



Interesting to note that the tower still standing (see above in the post by S. Gonzales Esq.) is the right hand front tower, one of four towers that were on each corner of the main structure. It's apparently where the fire started, which to me is surprising that it's the only one of the four that survived the fire without collapsing.

Thats a great picture.

Really like that would make a great front page for a news paper in my opinion.

[Simpo Two]

_dobbo_ said:

Guilty conscience on display there - I felt a bit shameful taking them.

Why? It's News, plain and simple. But as you've discovered you have to be bloody fast getting your images off. You might still get into a weekly.

[EmmaP]

I only heard about this on the news coming home in the car tonight. I feel quite sad as to me the Grand Pier defined Weston-super-Mare. I really do hope that they rebuild it as the sea front would not be the same without it. Despite having lived there for the first 19 years of my life I too have no photographs of it, only of the old pier.

[_dobbo_]

Emma, the good news is the Michaels (who recently purchased the pier) have committed to rebuilding it. Apparently early indications are the underlying structure is intact and largely undamaged which should assist with a rapid rebuild.

As much as I'd like to see this, and see a quality product at the end of it, I'm aware that similar things have been said about other piers immediately following a fire of this sort.

Time will tell I suppose.

Edit to add - front page of the Times tomorrow. I'm not too proud to admit it's a better photo than mine.

Edited by _dobbo_ on Monday 28th July 23:55