Fire breaks out in city nightclub

Fire swept through a bar at a Wolverhampton nightclub just hours after the last revellers had left.

The blaze took hold at Manhattan's, part of the Chicago Rock Cafe building, in Pipers Row, and destroyed the first-floor bar area.

Fire alarms were triggered at around 6.50am yesterday. Four crews of firefighters spent an hour tackling the fire, believed to have been sparked by an electrical fault.

Bosses of the two-storey nightclub and bar were today counting the costs of the damage but insisted the downstairs would still be open as usual.

Manager Mike Page said: "Thankfully we had closed up for the night and so there was nobody in the building. It could have been so much worse. We will have to get a new upstairs bar put in because that has been destroyed.

"Obviously alcohol goes up in flames and causes a lot of mess, but it is really not that bad.

"We will get in touch with builders as soon as possible but we will open the downstairs as normal, and maybe even get the upstairs bar back open by next weekend.

"Thankfully we have a great alarm system which alerted the fire service, which was there within minutes."

In May last year firefighters were called to the bar three times after the heating was left on, setting off the fire alarm.