Fleur Lombard QGM (1974 – 4 February 1996^[1]) was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain.

Staple Hill supermarket fire

Fleur Lombard was one of only eight women among Avon's 700 firefighters.^[2] On graduating in 1994, Lombard received the Silver Axe Award, for most outstanding recruit on her training school.^[3] On 4 February 1996, when she was 21 years old, she was fighting a supermarket fire in Staple Hill, near Bristol, when she and her partner, Robert Seaman, were caught in a flashover. She was killed as a direct result of the intense heat and her body was found just a few yards from the exit. Lombard was the first woman to die in peacetime service in Britain.^[2][4]

She was posthumously awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal.^[5] Robert Seaman was awarded the George Medal for bravery for returning to the burning building when he realised his partner had not followed him out.^[6] Another firefighter, Pat Foley, who also went into the blazing supermarket to help, was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Bravery.^[6]

Martin Cody

The fire was deliberately started by security guard Martin Cody,^[2] then aged 21, on his first day at work at the supermarket. Cody was said to live in a fantasy world and started the fire to relieve his boredom.^[2] He phoned a colleague to say the fire was "a good one", and was seen punching the air with glee before firefighters arrived on the scene. Cody was later jailed for seven and a half years for manslaughter and arson.^[2] The sentencing judge of the Royal Courts of Justice stated that he had escaped a life sentence for the manslaughter only because psychiatrists were unable to say he posed a continuing serious risk to the public.^[2] Lombard's parents criticised the jail sentence, saying psychiatric treatment would have been more appropriate.^[2]

Legacy

Lombard's ashes are interred in the churchyard of St Enodoc's Church, Trebetherick, Cornwall.^[3] A trust fund and bursary were set up in her memory.^[3]

A memorial plaque stands close to where Lombard died.^[7] Her name is on the UK National Firefighters Memorial located near St. Paul's Cathedral, London.^[8]

References

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