The Guernsey team were following the incident in Sark, which had been called in at about 11am as a fire at the Silver Mines at Port Gorey.
They had tuned in their radios into Sark and could hear the scale of the incident.
‘We made touch initially with Sark fire chief Kevin Adams to say we had arrangements in place by our service standard operating procedures to make a response to Sark,’ said watch commander Alex Clark.
‘That was the point that we started getting things ready. As watch commander I was speaking to our duty senior officer and duty officer to say we could make a response if we needed to.
‘At approximately midday that we found out that they required our assistance and that was based on them declaring a major incident.’
Cover for the Guernsey fire station was arranged and procedures were actioned. Nine personnel, with limited equipment, were sent to Sark.
Mr Clark had been in contact with Guernsey Ports who he said had helped to sort out boat travel with Isle of Sark Shipping’s Viking vessel.
‘Even on the boat on the way across I was in radio contact with Kevin Adams,’ he said.
‘He asked if we could take a southerly route to Sark to get eyes on the fire on the cliff, so we could see the extent of the fire and how it was making its way to the south corner of Little Sark above Port Gorey.
‘They were very fortunate with the wind direction so the fire was pushing towards the cliffs rather than back inland towards the properties.’
Sark’s volunteer fire crew is made up of 16 personnel, but the island has limited water supply. The Guernsey crew would be used to relieve Sark’s volunteer fire crew.
‘From my point of view as an incident commander, we could assist with the management of the scene and give some advice from our professional background,’ said Mr Clark.
‘They were doing a sterling job there, but we were able to alleviate a bit of pressure on their team and try to resolve the incident quicker, which definitely worked.
‘There was a big difference for us compared to the majority of our jobs over here.
‘For a wild fire we would turn up with water tanker which will have 9,000 litres and we have two of those, whereas the water supplies in Sark weren’t effective for the size of the fire.
‘Managing it was important and we managed to do that.’
The last Guernsey crews left Sark at 1pm on Saturday.
Like with any multi-agency response, there will be a multi-agency debrief to discuss the incident.
‘There was some amazing joint working, it’s just another example of pulling together to get through an incident.
'It shows how well everyone works together,’ said Mr Clark.
‘While everything we did was effective and it worked, we can always learn from incidents to make things better.
‘All of Sark pulled together, there were water trailers and tankers just appearing from everywhere. At one point a swimming pool was drained to provide firefighting water, it was a real island effort.’