Deliberate fire at refurbished RNLI lifeboat station branded 'really disappointing'
The station in Weston-super-Mare has recently been refurbished to extend it's life ahead of their move to Birnbeck Island
Last updated 11th Sep 2023
The RNLI in Weston-Super-Mare have called it 'really disappointing' after discovering a deliberate fire at their newly refurbished lifeboat station.
Volunteers, who were responding to an emergency rescue call at the time, found a small fire on the steps of the station at 04:10 yesterday morning (10 September) - which had to be put out as it was making a lot of smoke.
It follows the crew, who were being paged at the time, to a report of a woman in the sea in distress near the Grand Pier.
They say if the crew weren't called out to a rescue, the damage to the station at Marine Lake could have been more extensive.
The lifeboat crew then deployed to support the Coastguard and police officers to successfully get the female safely to the beach.
They were then retasked to carry out a shoreline search for a missing male before returning to their station at 6am.
The newly-refurbished lifeboat station extends its life ahead of their hoped for return to Birnbeck Island, once a new facility has been built.
Chris Ware Lifeboat Operations Manager, said: "It was really disappointing to our team that within a week of completing an extensive refurbishment of our temporary buildings that the entrance has been damaged by a small fire.
"We are however thankful that due to the crew being paged to carry out a rescue, and them discovering the fire on arrival, that the damage was not more extensive”.
It's been confirmed that CCTV footage is now being reviewed.
They add that even though the incident happened at 4 o'clock in the morning, due to the balmy weather, the area was still quite busy.
Anyone with any information should contact Avon & Somerset Police on 101.