Fire breaks out on the roof of the Somerset House art centre in London, around a hundred firefighters mobilised

Flames in the heart of the British capital. A fire broke out on the roof of Somerset House, an arts centre located in central London, on Saturday 17 August. Around 100 firefighters are currently working to fight the blaze, the British capital’s fire service said. The fire is currently localised “on part of the roof of the building”the brigade on X specified.

“Somerset House is currently closed due to a fire in a small part of the building. All staff and members of the public are safe.”the art centre said on X. Videos posted on social media showed a thick cloud of smoke billowing from the roof of the museum, a historic building dating from 1796 located on the banks of the Thames.

Traffic around the center will be “disrupted by the intervention of the firefighters”warned the fire department, which said it received the first alert around noon local time.

Somerset House has been made famous by several films that were filmed there, such as Love Actually (2003), two James Bond films and Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton (1999).