Workman accidentally caused devastating Selsey school blaze say fire officials

A statement from West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said: ‘At this stage we believe the most likely cause of the fire was accidental ignition caused by a workman carrying out maintenance on the roof.

‘There is no evidence to support online speculation that this was arson.’

The first of more than 60 999 calls made to the Sussex Control Centre was from a roofer to say a partition on the roof was alight at 7.54am on Sunday, the fire service said.

Three crews from Chichester, Selsey, and Bognor arrived within minutes of each other.

The fire was only brought under control at around 3pm the same day and most of the secondary school has been destroyed.