Daylesford Theatre had a lucky escape post Hurricane Nicole with Belco and emergency service staff managing to quickly extinguish an electrical fire yesterday morning.

The fire was caused by flooding in the cellar and a power cut that brought water into contact with the electrics. The blaze was quickly put out with no one injured and no significant damage to the building.

“The show must go on” was the attitude of Bar chairman Alan Brooks who was alerted to the fire by a theatre member who heard the fire alarm sounding. “I went to check the power was on in the morning, had a look in the cellar and saw it was full of water,” said Mr Brooks. “I thought I’d better not go down there. Nobody is hurt but if I had put my toe in the water I might not be speaking to you now. I tried to organise a local company to pump it out before heading back to work.

“Then I got a call to say the fire alarm had gone off and the Bermuda Fire Brigade was attending at about 9am so I went back around there. The power was on and the sump pumps had failed so the water came up and fused them. When the power came back on we got a mixture of water and electrics and there was a fire in one of the receptacles.

“There is still a foot of water in the cellar — it went up to about two and a half feet at one point.”

Belco isolated Daylesford from the rest of the block so the problem would not interfere with the surrounding businesses such as Café Ten or the dentist Smiles Inc. Mr Brook said the next job was to get the last of the water pumped out before getting the electricians in to replace whatever needs to be replaced. The theatre will be closed until further notice. He added: “It could be quite quick if we just have to replace a receptacle and not the whole panel but we have to wait for the electrician. The show must go on! Luckily this is not affecting any shows.

“We were there in time to open the doors and vent the smoke out. It wasn’t a huge fire it could have been worse than it was.

“The Bermuda Fire Service, particularly on a day when they are up to their armpits in alligators after Nicole, and Belco were just brilliant.”