Beach cafe in Falmouth 'minutes' from going up in flames after disposable BBQ bin fire

At 9pm last night Esther Lochrie, the Director of Swanpool Beach received a message telling her the bin that was attached to her building was on fire. Credit: Swanpool Beach

The owner of a beach cafe in Falmouth has spoken out about how her business was minutes away from going up in flames after a disposable BBQ caught alight in a bin.

At 9pm last night Esther Lochrie, the Director of Swanpool Beach received a message from a member of the public telling her the bin that was attached to her cafe building was on fire.

The public and local businesses jumped into action and put out the blaze using seawater and the fire brigade was called.

Esther Lochrie said "By the time I got down there, the fire had been put out but it had burnt out the whole bin surround, the plastic bin inside, the wooden housing had completely melted, there were smoke stains all up the wall.

The owner of Swanpool Cafe said it was ‘a close call for us, a really close call’. Credit: Swanpool Beach

"Our cafe was full of smoke, our smoke alarms were going off and I think in all reality we had about five minutes before the whole cafe burned down.

She pleads for people to be cautious when throwing away disposable BBQs: "This was all because someone had put a disposable barbecue that wasn’t fully out into a bin. Our big message to anyone visiting the beach and using a disposable BBQ is please, please make sure you put it in a metal bin and make sure it’s fully out because we almost lost our business last night."

The beach cafe have thanked people who ran around dousing the bin it with sea water. Credit: Swanpool Beach

Esther has thanked the local community for their efforts and said: "If that had happened at 10 o'clock there’s no reason why that fire wouldn’t have taken complete hold of both buildings.

"That would have been the whole summer season out for us possibly for years, it would have been huge."