Fire at the Tenterfield Tavern

NOONE was injured but a refrigeration unit worth thousands of dollars has been damaged after a fire at the Tenterfield Tavern this afternoon.

Emergency services workers including eight members of Tenterfield Fire and Rescue, police and paramedics were called to the establishment shortly before 2.30pm.

Captain John Gray said it was an electrical fire which started in a refrigeration unit in the storage room at the back of the pub.

Duty manager, Matt Townes who was working in the bar at the time said the pub’s integrated smoke alarms alerted him to the fire.

“I quickly scanned the security cameras and saw that the smoke coming out of the unit. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and went straight in there,”

“I could see some flames coming out of the back near the air vent, the rest was just smokey and hazy.”

“My main concern was to get the customers out as quickly and safely as possible. There was some low lying smoke but no one was injured” Mr Townes said

There were a dozen people in the bar at the time they were immediately evacuated.

John Gray said the situation could have been a lot worse because there were two gas bottles in storage room at the time.

He said the crew contained the fire in the cooling unit with no damage to any other part of the building.

The incident was under control within 20minutes

Mr Townes said they won’t know the extent of the damage until they are allowed back into bar and have a look around.

He said the refrigeration unit is worth between $5,000 to $10,000