Moment fireplace breaks out at working males’s membership after gasoline canister was ignited by a daily – resulting in the deaths of two males

Chilling footage shows the moment a working men’s club went up in flames after a regular customer ignited a gas canister – leading to the deaths of two men. 

Philip Antony Townsend, 70, who went by the name Tony T, and John James McCartney, 60, known as Johnny, both died in the blaze at Gordon Working Men’s Club in Morecambe on October 9, 2019.

An inquest heard that the pair were both overcome by smoke inhalation, LancsLive reported. 

The conflagration began when Johnny, a frequent visitor to the bar who also worked there as a cleaner, used a lighter to set ablaze a gas canister – which had been bought to power an Aldi heater.

Detective Chief Inspector Abigail Finch-Hall told the jury that Johnny had a habit of flicking his lighter in his hands.

One of the club’s regulars, Julie Galbraith, called Johnny a ‘good soul’ prone to doing ‘daft things’. 

She added that he had been warned before about the danger of doing such a motion so close to the gas canister and said she had seen him do it ‘at least 12 times’ before the fatal incident occurred. 

Ms Galbraith said in a statement: ‘He sometimes danced around it, clicking his lighter, and I told him on more than one occasion that he was going to blow himself up, or the rest of us, and his reply was “I forget things”.

Terrifying CCTV footage, played at the inquest, shows the club being overwhelmed with thick black smoke in less than a minute

The club’s unorthodox fire exit (picture) featured two doors with a small recess between them, which would only open to a 30 degree angle

DCI Finch-Hall added: ‘Witnesses saw him doing that and we believe he has opened the gas canister and used the lighter to ignite it. He has then picked up the canister and tried to get out of the building but it was on fire and he was pulled back.’ 

Eyewitnesses described seeing a ‘flash’ and then a ‘ring of fire’ around the bottle which was sitting on the carpet – as Johnny was engulfed by flames. 

Fire quickly spread and thick black smoke filled the room completely in less than a minute. 

Terrified customers streamed for the exit as the owner called for people to evacuate. Most punters were able to leave through a door in the kitchen at the back of the club.  

But the venue’s unorthodox fire escape, which required people to step into a small recess between two doors, which would only open to a 30 degree angle, and could not be opened from the outside. 

When the fire occurred, the exterior doors were locked which trapped Tony inside the building – his body was found by firefighters in the recess.

Meanwhile Johnny’s body was found close by to the ramp leading to the club’s snooker area.

Ten fire engines from Lancashire and Cumbria fire brigades scrambled to the blaze with firefighters using breath apparatus, four hose reels, a water jet and three ventilation units deployed to extinguish the fire, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said at the time. 

In January 2023, the club’s licensee Heather Goffin and her son Callum Goffin – the only director of the limited company responsible for running the club – were both handed custodial sentences after pleading guilty to a spate of fire safety breaches. 

The inquest continues.