And on Saturday night, their extraordinary efforts were recognised when the Sark Fire & Rescue Service was named Emergency Hero of the Year at the Pride of Guernsey Awards.
Accepting the award on behalf of his crew, chief fire officer Kevin Adams gave a first-hand account of the blaze which engulfed Little Sark on Friday 10 July during this summer’s record-breaking heat.
He said he had already been working for four hours that morning before his pager went off at 11am, alerting him to the fire.
‘Where are we going? Hope it’s something simple,’ he said. ‘You get there, and five metres away from Joe’s house is the fire. It had already flashed over a field the size of a football pitch in under two minutes.’
The blaze, which had been called in as a fire at the Silver Mines at Port Gorey, became the first major incident declared by Sark Fire & Rescue Service since its formation in 1958.
More than 50 people were directly involved in the emergency response, including 17 firefighters who travelled from Guernsey in shifts to assist. More than 270,000 litres of water were used to fight the flames.
Mr Adams, who has entered his 38th year with the service, said it was the unprecedented challenges and sheer nature of the event that made the experience so extraordinary.
‘The difficulties we had were vast. Some people said to us, “Why don’t we use salt water?” Fantastic. Tide was out,’ he said.
‘The so-called lightweight portable pumps are 120-odd kilos. We’d have had to take them down the path that’s only really designed to take one person, side along in single file.
‘And then you’ve got a fire on one side of the path to get to the sea, and you’ve got – oh no – we’ve got a fire on the other side as well.
‘It’s the first time the fire service has ever had two fires at the same time, thankfully close together.’
The number of hours worked by the volunteers was considerably more than Sark had ever seen before.
‘Our previous biggest fire was 206 fire crew hours spread over six weeks,’ he said.
‘In four days, this is excluding the help from Guernsey Fire Service and all the volunteers that turned up, we did 640 hours.
‘The first stint, 30 hours non-stop, which was a bit of a task.’
And yet, amid the exhaustion and danger, Mr Adams said one memory stood above all others.
‘To see volunteers from Sark turning up with water and just there to help was absolutely amazing.
‘It was a joy to watch. It was poetry in motion.
‘We, Sark Fire Service, have never previously had water supplied from other people. We’ve always collected it ourselves.
‘So our appliances are fixed for our gear, not when somebody’s bringing in a 1,000-litre tote of water.
‘We were lifting it up – probably breaking all health and safety regulations – on a forklift so gravity would win, and we could empty it into our fire pumps.’
The fire continued through the night and into the following day, with crews finally able to stand down from the main operation at about 5pm. Hotspots continued to require attention for another three weeks.
And Mr Adams said the flames were far from the only danger.
‘We found a German bunker that nobody knew about, so you could’ve been travelling over that and suddenly you’ve fallen in a six-foot hole.
‘We knew that there was a mine shaft from the silver mines somewhere, but weren’t sure.
‘So you’re going very carefully. You’re over the cliff. There were so many unknowns.
‘We’ve never fought a fire from six different places at once. It was too many, too many firsts.’
The response was not without its casualties, as five Guernsey firefighters were injured – two suffering broken bones – in a tractor and trailer accident while travelling to the scene. But the firefighters prevailed, and prevented the flames from reaching two houses.
Mr Adams said the operation had demonstrated the strength of the Bailiwick’s emergency services and the community they serve.
‘I can’t thank people enough who helped,’ he said.
‘I would estimate there were over 200 people directly and indirectly. That’s two-fifths of Sark who were involved just with one fire. It’s incredible. It really is amazing.
'Thank you to our colleagues and everybody in Guernsey.’