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Fire at Sovereign Hobbies


06/24

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Update from Jamie on Facebook:

 

Dear Customers,

Sadly we have a fire ongoing at the premises. Everyone is safe and the fire service are on scene now. Obviously this will cause disruption to our services. We will refund all outstanding orders, and Sovereign Hobbies Ltd will be closed for the short term.

Thank you for your understanding.

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2 hours ago, 06/24 said:

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say how glad we are that they are all safe, and wish @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbiesall the best in getting things back to normal.

very sad to hear this has happened I know from experience of home fires a very upsetting time  

 

Glad to hear all are well and wish you all a speedy recovery of your normal life and business

 

Best Wishes Keith

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Oh dear, what horrid news.

Jamie I hope you and yours are all safe and that this setback doesn't reduce your enthusiasm - I'm sure everyone on BM wishes you well and that you're able to get back to business without too much hassle.

Bad luck matey but my best wishes to all.

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Hi everyone, and thank you all for your support. Especial thanks to Jon for reposting our earlier WIP post when we closed the webstore whilst standing in the garden

 

The following is quite a lengthy post; my apologies.

 

Thankfully our house is quite big and being an architect's project it is more a small serious of little buildings joined together. Part luck and part judgement, we got the combination of open and closed apartures bang on which changed the Incident Commander's position from letting this part of the building burn down to trying to save it. It's where our bedrooms are.

 

At breakfast my youngest daughter (aged 6) wandered off and came back saying she smelled a smell like a blown out candle through in "the cottage". She's wild that one, but as sharp as a razor so we went through and agreed but couldn't find the source. We had one particular ceiling light in our ensuite which worked intermittently. I turned the lights on and it glowed, dimmed, then glowed brightly. I turned them off and could then see orange flickering above/through the fitting.

 

We entered the loft space with an extinguisher and opened the velux windows for ventilation. It was clear that access to that lamp from above couldn't be achieved quick enough, so Gill called 999 and got the children out whilst I went back to the ensuite and tried discharging the extinguisher up into/through the fitting. I have some burns from burning/dripping plastic coming down. This did dampen down the visible flames but not entirely, and by now I could head faint crackling from above. I abandoned the house then closing all doors in the living space, but I didn't go back up into the loft and thus left the velux windows open. I left the loft hatch and ladder open/down into my eldest daughter's bedroom.

 

I am quite angry at myself that my first action was not to prise the fitting out of the ceiling where it could have been extinguished and denied a cozy nest of timber and insulation to allow it to build up its heat.

 

The fire service told us that they had first intended to let the cottage burn down and try to prevent it spreading to the porch and through to the open plan living area which has a wing with bathroom and guest bedroom and a mezzanine level where the Sovereign office and my modelling area is. However, upon realising we had left rhe veluxes open there was no back-draft risk to the firefighters and because we'd closed all the doors there was a lot worth trying to save downstairs. 4 fire pump vehicles and 1 height vehicle came, plus 2 marked cars and we also can 2 unmarked and 3 marked Police turn up.

 

All of the Sovereign stuff is completely safe - we just have no power due to extensive wiring damage and the fact that the main isolation is in the damaged part of the house. Likewise, our water is electrically pumped from our own well and we have damaged pipework.

 

If anyone's interested, here is the sort of mess a relatively well contained fire  makes that was caught very early before it properly got going. I'd like to think I was fairly anti-kneejerk reaction however I will take this opportunity to point out that the ceiling mounted smoke alarms in the living space didn't go off until smoke was pouring from the eaves and flames were emerging from the extractor fan vents on the roof tiles. The progress of the fire at the point at which the 999 call was made would have been entirely different had Penny not sniffed smoke and thought it worth telling us. I therefore suggest that people consider fitting an additional smoke alarm in the loft space. The cost is minimal but in the event of an electrical fire in the ceiling or wall cavities, it's the loft which will fill with smoke long before the living space smoke detectors will activate.

 

We live in a very remote area. It had crossed my mind before that in the event of a fire we'd be left with a charred patch of land. These were retained crews about 8 miles away. From 999 to them arriving took around 20 to 25 minutes which objectively is bloody good time. I will admit it feels like forever when standing watching the smoke thicken and find new ways out, then see flames appearing.

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This is/was the ensuite where the fire started

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This is the loft space where I first tried to get access from above to try the extinguisher on it

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Our thanks to Scottish Fire and Rescue Service who were outstanding today. We took our childrens' absolute favourite teddy's with us. The fire service removed stuff like Kindles, photographs etc as they found them.

 

The rest of the house is completely unharmed. Whilst the insurance loss adjuster won't be there til Tuesday we haven't touched anything to avoid giving the insurers any excuse not to pay. From a look around though, most of our personal stuff might be ok. Their toys etc seem no worse for wear but are a bit smelly. Our clothes were all in old-fashioned free standing drawers and wardrobes so whilst the walls have had some filtering with Tamiya Smoke and the cream carpets have perhaps been over-weathered with a carbon black wash, the clothes, most toys and most books seem ok. There is water peeing down through light fittings in all of the rooms but if the plaster board doesn't fall down then fingers crossed, we might be able to cheer up the children a little.

 

A new razor, new toothbrushes and some new clothes from Tesco tonight will get me to work on Monday. It's very disruptive this...

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9 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

All of the Sovereign stuff is completely safe - we just have no power due to extensive wiring damage and the fact that the main isolation is in the damaged part of the house. Likewise, our water is electrically pumped from our own well and we have damaged pipework.

I'm ashamed at the audible sigh of relief I emitted here.

 

Is there anything modellers can do to help out, even modellers who might be, say, thousands of miles away?

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That sounds really tough Jaime but could obviously have been much worse so I'm pleased for you guys that damage is as limited as you say. It still looks b awful though & a real wake up call for many of us. Hang in there.

Steve.

 

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8 minutes ago, Procopius said:

I'm ashamed at the audible sigh of relief I emitted here.

 

Is there anything modellers can do to help out, even modellers who might be, say, thousands of miles away?

 

Hi Edward,

 

Actually there is!

 

You might be surprised to know that one hears all sorts of things when running a business, ranging from learning on the internet that you've gone bust to that you have died!

 

Something that would be especially useful would be if people would kindly douse any exaggerations or Chinese-whispers if they see any out there.

 

We're not done, far from it. We'll back back up and running again with all the stock we had before (and perhaps some restock) within a few weeks. You're an intelligent and well read man who has grasped the situation, I realise, but everything Sovereign related is completely intact, undamaged etc. We *could* go back and pack orders under torch light tomorrow morning, but we have a few urgent matters to attend to first.

 

We'll definitely be back though - we just need to clear away some distractions to get electricians in, water pipes cut and capped, insurance calls to make etc etc. We can/will live in the rest of the house whilst the roof is rebuilt on the cottage, we just need power back for that. 

 

Thanks!

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So sad to hear this news Jamie, however elated to read that those things that cannot be replaced are all safe and still intact. 

You have many friends on here and we wish the family all the best for a speedy patch up and getting your lives back to order. 

Not the best start to 2019, so fingers crossed it's all good news from here onwards. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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After seeing those photos I'm so glad and relieved you and your family are all right and safe.

 

I just hope that no further problem arise, as if you haven't got enough problems on your hands right now.

 

Good luck with builders, insurance people, and I am sure you have everyone on BM's thoughts prayers and best wishes.

 

Edited by Whofan
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Thank goodness the timing was such that you and the family are all safe. Huge pity about the house but it’s all fixable. My motor engineer uncle always said cars fix folks don’t. 

 

Hope the insurance and renovations go smoothly and quickly.  Keep Mrs Jamie’s spirits up by telling her it’s her chance to renovate and decorate 

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As others have said, the main thing is you are all safe and well. 

 

I hope your hands are ok? As Procopius says, if there's anything we can do, just say the word. 

 

Best wishes

 

 

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1 minute ago, 06/24 said:

Also I hope my decision to spread word to your customers here hasn't contributed to any Chinese whispers, for that was certainly not my intention.

Absolutely not in the slightest Jon - you did the best possible thing by relaying our own social media post. We will have some disruption and want people to know the facts relevant to that disruption. We're glad you posted this here. We did the Facebook post from the garden and if you hadn't, we'd have posted here this evening ourselves.

 

Sometimes though, someone takes it upon themselves to speculate about how disruptive it might be out in another thread or post somewhere, then others pick up on that rather than the original source and think it's gospel and - you know the rest...

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