A fire alarm system has been praised for providing early detection of a blaze in a plant room at a Hampshire hotel.

Fire alarm stopped blaze from spreading at the Beach Arms

Station commander Ryan Thomas, of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, said that without the fire alarm, he had “no doubt” the fire would have spread to the roof of the Beach Arms Hotel in Basingstoke.

“If the hotel not had a well-maintained smoke alarm system, I have no doubt that this fire could potentially have spread beyond the room of origin and seriously damaged the roof of the hotel, if not the whole building,” he said.

“The effective evacuation of staff and hotel residents at today’s incident should be commended, as should the successful actions of the fire crews that tackled the blaze.”

More than 30 firefighters attended the fire, which started in the building’s boiler room on the first floor.

The alarm was raised just after midday and police cordoned off the area to allow firefighters in with an aerial ladder platform, a special equipment unit and an incident command unit.

Speaking about the fire, Thurman said: “Essentially we were facing a serious fire in the first floor plant room of the hotel. Two members of staff had attempted to tackle the blaze with a fire extinguisher, however the hotel manager took the right course of action by swiftly evacuating the whole premises and alerting the fire and rescue service.”

An investigation into the cause of the fire is underway.