A LANDLORD said only an “absolute fluke” prevented his entire pub from being destroyed by fire last night.

Michael Prince of the Earl Howe in Holmer Green left the bar to go upstairs at around 9pm and saw a boarded-up fireplace in his first floor flat catch fire.

It had been sparked from the heat in the chimney from the open fire on the ground floor of the pub.

And reacting quickly, firefighters arrived managed to averted disaster and douse the flames before they took hold.

Mr Prince said: “Fortunately I went upstairs at the moment the fire broke through.

“It was the heat coming through from below, and the whole pub would have gone up. It was an absolute fluke that I found it.

“Everything is fine, it wasn’t as bad as the fire engines made it look. It did not affect downstairs at all.”

Three fire engines rushed to the pub on Earl Howe Road following the call, using two sets of chimney gear, a turntable ladder, a thermal imaging camera and buckets of water used to tackle to nascent blaze.

Mr Prince – who is also a Chiltern district councillor - said previous occupants had boarded up the fireplace which was linked to the same chimney as the bar area.

And he said that the spot will now be bricked up to avoid a repeat of last night’s near miss.

The pub remains open to customers and Mr Prince said trade has not been affected.

It is not the first time a fire has broken out at the village pub.

The Earl Howe badly damaged in March 2009 after fire ripped through it in the early hours of the morning.