Fleur Lombard
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Fleur Lombard QGM (1974 – 1996) was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peace time Britain.
On 4 February 1996, when she was 21 years old, she was fighting a supermarket fire in Staple Hill, near Bristol, when she and her partner, Robert Seaman, were caught in a flashover. She was killed as a direct result of the intense heat and her body was found just a few yards from the exit.
She was posthumously awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal. Robert Seaman was awarded the George Medal for bravery for returning to the burning building when he realised his partner had not followed him out. Another firefighter, Pat Foley, who also went into the blazing supermarket to help, was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Bravery.
The fire was deliberately started by security guard Martin Cody, then aged 21, on his first day at work at the supermarket. Cody was said to live in a fantasy world and started the fire as he found his new job boring. He phoned a colleague to say the fire was "a good one", and was seen punching the air with glee before firefighters arrived on the scene. Cody was later jailed for seven and a half years for manslaugther and arson. Ms Lombard's parents criticised the jail sentence, saying psychiatric treatment would have been more appropriate.
Fleur's ashes are interred in the churchyard of St Enodoc Church in Trebetherick, Cornwall.
[edit] References
- Arsonist gets seven years for killing firewoman, Daily Telegraph, 2 September 1997
- Dying in the line of duty, BBC News, 31 October 2002
