A LEISURE manager donned a fireman’s helmet when a blaze engulfed his centre.

Anthony Slater helped evacuate people from Pendle Wavelengths in Nelson before dashing off to Nelson Fire Station to take up his role as a retained fireman.

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The fitness and health manager was on the spot to to find the source after fire broke out at the centre’s spa in Leeds Road last Wednesday.

Mr Slater, 29, said: “I wasn’t actually on call at the time. As soon as they started evacuating the building I ran to the fire station and jumped on a pump.

“The fire service were quite happy to see me because I knew the building.

“I located the fire and then began to extinguish it using a hose.

“Another crew came to relieve us they used me to help the other fireman find where they were going because you could hardly see anything with the smoke.”

Mr Slater says it took around 45 minutes to extinguish the fire, which has destroyed the spa and left the centre smoke damaged.

After the blaze was put out, Mr Slater raced back to the station to get back into his civvies before returning to the building to retrieve belongings for customers, some of who were still in their swimming costumes.

Mr Slater – who has been a retained fireman for eight years – said the chief executive of Pendle Leisure Trust, Phil Storey, has thanked him several times since the incident but in his mind he was just doing his job – both of them.

“I’ve worked at Wavelengths for a long time. It’s become my home,” said Mr Slater, who lives in Barrowford with his wife Carla and two-year-old daughter, Delilah.

“As we were evacuating I said I’m going to go.

“I’m going to join in.

“It wasn’t something I thought about. Something just took over me. All I could think is ‘I’ve got to save this building’.

“It’s nice to get praise for what you do but I was just doing my job.”

The centre has been closed since the fire, but alternative measures have been put in to place to keep disruption to a minimum.

Mr Storey said: “We’d like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding during this time.”