VOLUNTEERS are beginning to salvage everything they can following the fire that devastated The Bureau Centre for the Arts in Blackburn.

A handful of people were allowed back into the grade II-listed building yesterday, after firefighters had made the site safe, to rescue anything that managed to avoid the flames.

Up to 70 firefighters battled with the inferno which took hold of the former St John the Evangelist Church in Victoria Street on Wednesday at 5.20am.

The main interior section of the building was badly damaged.

Firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading into the tower.

Cath Ford, one of the centre’s directors, said volunteers managed to pull out more items to save than they initially thought they would be able to.

She said: “We’ve just got to go through and find what we can save and what we will have to throw away.

“Obscura Darkroom had an exhibition in the gallery and main space and many expensive prints and pieces of equipment were destroyed.

“We need a skip we can’t afford. We are absolutely gutted. We are absolutely heartbroken.

“We need to let people know we have not gone out of business and we are still here.”

Firefighters have sealed all the doors to the building and erected a fence around the site.

A fire service spokesman said an investigation is still under way to the cause of the fire, however it is not thought to be deliberate.

Leonie Stephenson, another centre director, said: “People’s comments have been really overwhelming.

"That’s what has kept us going.

“It would all get too much and someone would say something nice and it would start us crying again.

“I don’t think we realised how many lives we actually touched and I don’t think we realised how much we are part of the community.

“We don’t have money. Everything has been down to volunteers working lots of hours.”

The group has asked if anyone can support it in anyway to contact its social media page by searching ‘The Bureau Centre for the Arts on Facebook.