A fire believed to have been started by a faulty electric sign caused minor damage to the mezzanine of the Birmingham Hippodrome on 11 October. Hot smoke from the blaze activated the theatre’s sprinklers.
The water quickly extinguished the fire before it could spread any further. Firefighters from Highgate were called to the theatre at around 0620 hrs. Nine firefighters spent two hours at the scene helping to clear up around 5,000 litres of water – some of which has poured into the theatre’s lobby.
Theatre staff then worked quickly to clean up ahead of two performances by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which went ahead as planned.
Dave Clark, from Highgate Fire Station, said: “The fire was caused by an electrical advertising hoarding which had a fault. It caused the sprinklers to activate which stopped the fire. There was some flooding throughout the theatre but they were open as normal last night.”
The theatre said on Twitter that there had been ‘minimal damage’ caused by the fire and both the matinee and evening performances went ahead as normal.
