FORMER colleagues and family of a firefighter killed in the line of duty remembered her, 30 years to the day after she died.
Fleur Lombard, 21, was killed in a flashover on February 4 1996, as she and her colleagues fought to contain a fire started by an arsonist in the Leo’s supermarket that stood on the site now occupied by Tesco in Staple Hill.
Her memory is honoured every year on the anniversary of the tragedy, in a ceremony around her memorial in Broad Street, opposite the supermarket.
This year Fleur’s father Roger, sister Bex Lombard-Earl and Bex’s youngest child Rowan travelled from the North of England for the ceremony.
They also attended the unveiling of a red plaque in her memory at Kingswood fire station – the closest station to Speedwell, which closed in 2015.
Fleur was the first female firefighter to die on active service in peacetime Britain. She was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal and Chief Fire Officer’s Commendation.