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Bright spark Simeon tackles holiday blaze

16/ 7/2008

HOURS after going down on one knee to propose on a remote hillside in Crete, policeman Simeon Shakespeare was back at the beauty spot battling a raging grass fire.

Hyde-based Simeon spotted the blaze in the resort of Agia Pelagia from his hotel room’s balcony.

After weeks of dry weather, the flames quickly took hold of the crumbling vegetation. And by the time 31-year-old Simeon reached the spot with an extinguisher, the fire had spread across the hillside.

Fiancee Zahra Boardman alerted other guests, who searched the Village Panorama Hotel for extinguishers to pass to Simeon and a small group of other holidaymakers.

For more than 20 minutes they battled against the blaze — at first alone and then alongside firefighters. Simeon was forced to stop after embers burned through the soles of his trainers.

He said: "At first I thought I would be able to stem the fire, but by the time I got there it had already escalated quickly. It was spreading round the trees and bushes. Zahra and other hotel guests collected extinguishers and threw them up to us."

Never having used an extinguisher before, he admitted he wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the blaze.

"I have never experienced heat like that," he said. "It was intense but the smoke was the worst. I had to press my vest against my mouth so I could breathe properly. When the fire crew arrived I expected them to discourage us because we weren’t professionals, but they directed us to some fires and told us where the flames could stem from."

With a wedding proposal in mind, Simeon had always planned that the trip to Crete would be eventful. But he was not prepared for just how dramatic it was to become. Zahra said she was proud of her fiance’s bravery.

"This was just so typical of Simeon," she said. "He just wades into any emergency situation and doesn’t think about any danger to himself."