A FIRE which tore through a village pub was so devastating that firefighters have said they will never be able to say exactly what caused it.

More than 50 firefighters were sent to tackle the blaze at the Crawley Inn, Witney, last week.

The fire had broken out and spread to the roof and areas of the first floor, forcing residents to evacuate quickly.

Crews stopped the fire spreading to all areas of the pub, but it took several hours to finally extinguish, and uncover hot spots under floors and in the roof space.

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The blaze destroyed the contents of a room, and caused significant structural damage.

Chris Wilson, station manager in Oxford, said: “Fire crews tackled the fire very aggressively which meant we stopped the spread early, but we still had to put out a well-developed and widespread fire in the roof and first floor.

“My crews worked extremely hard and fought off heat and exhaustion to finally control and extinguish this difficult fire.

“Tight spaces and burned through flooring made things harder and with it being the hottest day so far, we were all being pounded by the heat.”