Most of the news staff at The Argus in Brighton had to be called in to work on Tuesday evening when news broke of a fire on the city’s Palace Pier.

Scores of visitors had to be evacuated as flames lept from the world-famous structure after a fire broke out in the ghost train at the sea end of the pier, and reporters from The Argus were quickly on the scene.

Editor Simon Bradshaw said: “The fire started at 7.20pm and we knew about it by 7.22pm.

“Most of our reporters came back in, some on days off and some on extra shifts, having worked all day.”

As news of the fire spread nine reporters got to work on the story, together with six photographers and six sub-editors, to produce comprehensive coverage for the morning’s paper.

Simon had already signed off Wednesday’s first edition, but news of the fire meant work on it had to begin again.

An extra eight pages were added, including a picture wrap (above), with a dramatic picture of the fire covering the front and back page, and seven pages of coverage inside.

Staff worked well into the night, gathering eyewitness accounts and pieceing together what had happened, until the paper was printed at 1.15am ready to hit the streets alongside the nationals.

Much reference was also made to Brighton’s second pier, West Pier, which started to collapse into the sea on December 29 and broke up further last month.

Simon said: “Staff were called in from home, from the cinema – wherever they happened to be – they were found or volunteered.

“They’ve done the paper proud, and not for the first time. We’ve shown that we are good at handling the big stories.”

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