Cannock fireman's role in Coronation Street blaze drama
The Rovers Return going up in flames is one of soapland's biggest storylines of the year. And fans of Corrie have a firefighter from Staffordshire to thank for tonight's dramatic and realistic scenes.
Matt Owens, who is based at Cannock Fire Station, also runs a firm which provides fire safety advice, training, extras and props to the BBC and ITV.
His latest venture is the fire at The Rovers Return on Coronation Street, being aired at 7.30pm and 8.30pm tonight on ITV.
The 25-year-old from Cannock had to train Tony Hirst, who plays fireman Paul Kershaw, how to carry out a fireman's lift.
"We've done all the fire safety for the filming of the scene and we were on scene in case any actors got trapped or if the fire got out of control," said Mr Owens, director of the firm Rapid Fire Cover."There were 12 of us on standby just in case anything went wrong. We played extras as well.
"It's all a bit surreal being there on the set and on camera. At one point we were standing outside The Rovers Return, just watching it burn. Normally as firefighters, we'd get to the scene and be putting the fire out. It was unreal just watching the fire, especially at such an iconic pub.
"It was a hard three weeks working on the set, we were there from February 11 to last Tuesday. The first week we were working all night, from 3pm to 5am. The second week was all days, doing inside shots and the last week tidying bits up."
Mr Owens has worked on the sets for A Touch of Frost, Hollyoaks, Bedlam, Silent Witness and Emmerdale. He was also responsible for the fire safety for Wednesday's Prisoners' Wives.
