Fire tears through London luxury hotel on Valentine's Day
More than 100 people were evacuated as flames ripped through a popular luxury hotel and restaurant in central London on Friday.
'Twenty fire engines and around 125 firefighters tackled a fire at a hotel on Chiltern Street in Marylebone,' the London Fire Brigade said in a statement.
The blaze started in the ducting then spread from the ground floor and to the roof of the four-story hotel called the Chiltern Firehouse, which is known to be frequented by celebrities.
An unnamed firefighter told the UK's PA Media news agency that 'the hotel is probably going to need a large refurbishment.'
Many people were reportedly eating at the restaurant on the ground floor celebrating Valentine's Day.
The hotel's owner Andre Balazs told PA Media: 'We know in fact one of those who rushed to the Chiltern Firehouse this evening had been stationed in the building when it was a fire station 30 years ago. I am truly grateful to all of them as I am sure that this is not the Valentine's Day evening they had in mind.'
Guy Fischman, 23, from Richmond, southwest London, told PA Media he was shocked when he saw the blaze as he was leaving his workplace Friday evening.
'My coat stinks of smoke right now,' Fischman told the news agency. 'There was really thick smoke and it got into the other street as well. I walked out and the visibility was awful.'
'The whole street was shut off and you could see the smoke from quite far away… it was crazy,' Fischman added.
The roof and third floor of the building were completely destroyed and 'around half of the second floor and a small part of the ground floor were damaged by the fire,' according to the London Fire Brigade.
There were no injuries reported.
'Crews worked hard over a number of hours in arduous conditions in a complex and historically significant building. Firefighters successfully contained the fire to one property, preventing it from spreading to neighboring properties,' the brigade's Assistant Commissioner Paul McCourt said in a statement.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
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