The Argus in Brighton has recorded two of its highest sales of the year withthorough coverage of a huge fire on the city's famous West Pier.

The spectacular blaze provided five pages of pictures andreports for that evening's paper and a further 11 in the following day'spaper, including a four-page, colour picture wrap.

Retail sales of the Friday paper on the day of the blaze were up almost 30 per cent on the previousweek, with a total sale of 51,619.

The Saturday edition sold 50,283, including 39,785 retail sales copies -almost 43 per cent up on the previous week (excluding the Sports Argus) -and probably the paper's highest Saturday sale for many years.

The fire tragedy, believed to be arson, followed the partial collapse of thepier last year and a fire on the neighbouring Palace Pier only a fewweeks ago, both of which also provided healthy sales boosts.

Editor-in-chief Simon Bradshaw, who was training on an NCE refresher coursein Darlington, said: "The papers were superb and the whole team fromreporters to van drivers did a great job.

"Particular praise goes to the photographers and assistant editor(production) Pat Lewis who was trying to chief sub and edit the paper at thesame time - and while I was pestering her down the phone!

"I was naturally sad not to have been there - in fact I was hopping mad -but it made me proud to know the team can do such a great job without me. Ihope, though, it doesn't give anyone ideas!"