On the 2nd of August, 1973, three boys were playing on the miniature golf course
outside the Summerland Leisure Center on the Isle of Man. They ducked into an empty ticket
booth so that they could share a cigarette. The oldest boy in the group was just 14.
Their only worry at the time was being caught smoking, but they would soon have bigger concerns.
A dropped match started a fire which grew rapidly out of control. Panicking, the three boys fled.
They would live to see another day, but dozens of people who were inside Summerland when the
fire began would not. Constructed in 1971, Summerland was a unique complex, considered
extremely advanced for its time. The building, large enough to accommodate 10,000 people,
consisted of a swimming pool (also known as the "Aquadrome"), multiple restaurants and bars,
a miniature golf course, a solarium, a theater, an underground disco, a sauna, a roller skating rink,
a small fairground, and an amusement arcade. All of this was set across five floors in an
ultra-modern building constructed mainly from metal and plastic. The bold design of which,
a promotional pamphlet boasted, would "set the architectural world alight." It was intended to be
a one-stop centralized holiday location - one that could compete with sunnier destinations abroad.
Inside Summerland it never rained, the wind never blew and the temperature was never anything less
than perfect. Visitors could spend the entire day inside basking under an artificial sun,
swimming in artificial pools and enjoying a round-the-clock roster of entertainment. There
was nothing else like it in the world. Of course people flocked to the venue: 500,000 in its first
year. From 1971 until 1973 many happy memories were made within the plastic walls of the complex.
It was hailed by the british tourist authority as, "An outstanding tourist enterprise," a
destination that was close to home and yet offered boundless entertainment and a tropical climate.
For a few short years Summerland thrived. Then, at the height of summer in 1973, the complex burned.
At around 7:50pm on the 2nd of August, three boys on holiday from Liverpool accidentally started
a fire while sneaking a smoke on the miniature golf course. Panicking, they fled the scene and
the fire they had started consumed the kiosk they had been hiding in, causing it to slump against
the wall of Summerland. Staff were called to the scene by worried patrons, but their response was
less than ideal. They could see that the fire was licking against the outside wall of Summerland,
but as far as they knew the walls were fireproof. To them, then, this fire wasn't a serious issue.
It was relatively small, and it was outside the complex - certainly no cause for a mass
evacuation. Instead staff tried to fight the fire with extinguishers, hoses and poles.
A lack of any real fire safety training meant that none of them placed a call
to the fire brigade - they simply weren't sure whose responsibility it was to do so,
and were in any case sure that they could handle things themselves.
Little did these staff members know that the fire was already inside the building, feeding
on flammable building materials in a hidden gap between the outer and inner walls. There, unseen,
it spread outward and upward and burned hotter and hotter until, very suddenly, it burst through
into the main building. At this point in time, despite the fire outside sending a huge plume
of smoke into the air, new guests were still being admitted through the entrance turnstiles.
The fire brigade had still not been called by anyone at the complex...
although the sight of smoke had prompted people miles away to raise the alarm. Indeed,
one call came via the harbourmaster, who was alerted by the captain of a ship out at sea.
No guest inside the complex could have known that there was any cause for alarm until,
with shocking suddenness, flames erupted from the walls and raced along the ceiling of the arcade.
A panicked scramble for the exits began. In many cases staff members (who'd barely had any fire
safety training) were of little help. A ride operator fled the fairground without switching
off the rides, leaving several children to be rescued from a moving carousel by their parents
and other onlookers. Elsewhere an entertainer confidently assured patrons that the smoke was
from nothing worse than a chip pan fire and convinced them to remain in their seats...
only to realize the severity of the situation just moments later,
and begin screaming for people to run. Conditions within the building quickly became unimaginable.
Firstly the nature of the complex meant that many of the people within were part of family groups,
but family groups that had felt quite happy to separate. While children enjoyed a magic show,
parents might have gone up to another floor to relax in the solarium. When the fire burst
into the building proper, then, many people began to frantically search for their families
rather than to evacuate through the nearest exit. Secondly, there were only a small
number of exits readily available. The rest were locked and in some cases chained shut,
ostensibly to prevent people from sneaking in without paying the entrance fee. Keys for
emergency exits were supposed to be stored in glass-fronted boxes beside each set of doors,
but in many cases these boxes were empty or were situated so high up on the wall that they were out
of reach for most people. In one instance a set of fire doors was blocked by a parked car outside the
building a car that, with horrible irony, belonged to Summerland's Safety Officer. In many cases
in order to escape guests had to smash windows and batter open doors with whatever was available.
Finally, escaping guests had to contend with the material from which Summerland was built.
The majority of the building was clad in a kind of plastic sheeting
known as oroglass. Survivors would later come to refer to it as "horrorglass". During the fire
it melted, dripping down and burning people who were trying to flee the smoke and flames.
The vast majority of deaths occurred within the main part of the building.
Being open-plan in design, there was nothing to stop the spread of the fire or to offer protection
from smoke and hot gases. Many people died or were injured as they tried to descend from one level
to another down staircases that were narrow and unprotected. Such was the crush around
the few available staircases that some parents threw their children from the balconies in the
hope that someone below would catch them. Many people jumped, with a few brave staff members
remaining at their posts until the last possible moment to catch people jumping from upper levels.
One staff member even doused himself in water from a fire extinguisher so that he could stay
inside the building and assist escaping guests for longer. Throughout it all no alarm sounded:
the fire had burned through the control circuit before it could be triggered.
The fire service arrived and tackled the blaze using water from the swimming pool
and then from the sea to damp down the flames. The injured were ferried to a nearby hospital by
ambulances which operated like shuttles, moving back and forth for two solid hours until the last
seriously injured victim had been transported. By midnight the rescue operation was over and the
fire service turned to the retrieval of bodies, a harrowing process that would take several days.
In the end 50 people lost their lives in the fire and 80 more sustained serious injuries.
An investigation was launched and identified a wealth of failings. Exits should not,
under any circumstances, have been chained shut. Staff should have been given fire safety training.
The fire service should have been called within one minute of the fire
outside the building being discovered. Mistake after mistake had been made,
but the greatest errors had taken place long before Summerland was even open to the public.
Because of budgetary issues during construction multiple firms had worked on the building.
The company which built the outer shell hadn't known with any certainty how the interior would
be divided up, and so hadn't been able to place fire exits appropriately. Additionally
it is believed that the firm which handled the interior fitting out of Summerland might
have inadvertently undone some of the fireproofing carried out by the firm which built the exterior.
As well as this, materials had been chosen that were cost effective but which weren't
sufficiently fireproof. Oroglass, for example, had been approved despite its flammability
on the basis that it would soften and fall out of its frame in the case of a fire,
facilitating escape. The fire safety budget had been a matter of contention,
with owners repeatedly seeking cheaper options. Sprinklers were not installed because to do so
throughout the building would simply cost too much. Again and again communication had
failed and decisions had been taken which prioritized convenience or cost reduction
over human life. But, despite all this, the investigation concluded that nobody was to blame.
There were "no villains" said the report, only "many human errors and failures".
This judgment, incidentally, was applied equally to the three boys who started the fire.
They were identified and brought before a judge, where they were fined three pounds each (about
£30 each in today's money). The burned shell of Summerland was eventually demolished and rebuilt.
The new Summerland was smaller and constructed from traditional materials
with a state-of-the-art alarm and sprinkler system. It eschewed the open-plan design
of its predecessor and opted instead for a lower and more compartmentalized building.
This new Summerland was a reflection of the impact that the fire had on the construction industry.
Every lesson learned and new rule implemented was reflected in its design. The new Summerland
epitomized a changed attitude towards fire safety in leisure and entertainment buildings.
However a flood in 2002 gutted the new complex, leading to its eventual demolition. Now all
that remains of Summerland is a scarred cliff face. It should be hoped that the
lessons learned from the fire, at such great cost, do not disappear so easily.