He recalls that as he approached the area around Sidney Street he found it filled by the largest crowd he had ever seen. Forcing his way through the immense throng he reported to Winston Churchill. Despite his entreaty to be allowed to extinguish the fire, the Home Secretary ordered him to stand by and not approach the fire until he received further orders. These instructions were precisely the same as those given previously to Station Officer Albert Edmunds, in charge of the Mile End Road station appliances first in attendance. He too had been told by Churchill to wait with his crews until told to advance. Despite their reservations about this course of action, the Brigade held back and impatiently awaited the order to get to work.
          As they watched in dismay the flames continued their relentless development, downwards floor by floor, and upwards into the roof of the property. At the same time the gunfire from within the building grew less and less so that by the time silence finally reigned an uncontrolled fire had broken through the roof and was spreading to adjacent properties. Even when they were finally allowed to lay out hose lines in readiness, the London Fire Brigade were still held back until, as Churchill later wrote in his memoirs, '....it became certain that these human fiends had perished.'
          At this point the Brigade were finally given the go ahead to tackle the fire. While one branch was working in from the rear of the building, a second was got to work from the roof of a neighbouring property to fight the fire from above. An escape was also pitched from the front of the building and a jet got to work from the head of the ladder. It was a fierce blaze, one that had been allowed to go unchecked for far too long for the Brigade to have any hope of extinguishing it with any expectation of minimalising internal damage. By the time the flames were eventually brought under control, number 100 Sidney Street was a burnt out shell.
          As soon as practicable, when the smoke had cleared sufficiently, an entrance was made by members of the Brigade. They were accompanied by armed members of the police force in a joint effort to locate and recover the bodies of the anarchists. It was not long before the badly burnt remains were discovered and carried from the premises. But the drama had not yet run its course for as the search continued for other members of the siege, a hearth stone, weighing in excess of a hundredweight, crashed down from an upper floor and landed amongst a group of firemen. Several members of the Brigade were injured.
          ADO Morris, who was part of this group, was one of the fortunate ones. He was knocked to the ground but suffered little more than a dent in his brass helmet. Alongside him was Arthur Dyer, also later to command the LFB, who was struck and buried beneath parts of the falling debris. Station Officer Edmunds had stepped out of the room seconds before the collapse and escaped without a scratch. Not so District Officer Pearson. He alas took the full brunt of the lethal object which pinned him to the ground, his spine fractured by the heavy stone. For six painful months he clung to life, paralysed in both legs, before death sadly brought an end to his suffering. Shortly before his untimely demise he was promoted to Superintendent.
          Shortly after this disastrous occurrence, a second badly burnt body was located in the rubble and removed to the morgue. Here an examination of the two bodies revealed that while one man had died of suffocation, the other had been shot through the head. These details were forwarded to the Coroner whose duty it  was to hold an inquest and to legally rule on the cause of their unnatural demise.
          One of the fire officers called to give evidence was Station Officer Albert Edmunds who was asked to provide the answer as why the Brigade had left the deceased to the mercy of the flames instead of attempting to rescue them. When his statement was found to be at odds with those of the police, who had been in overall charge of the siege, Winston Churchill was called to the witness box. In it he publicly explained his reasons behind his actions, admitting that he bore full responsibility for refusing to allow the London Fire Brigade to carry out normal firefighting and humanitarian duties. A verdict of Justifiable Homicide was recorded.
          One fact that was never ascertained was the cause of the fire that brought an end to the deadly siege. A number of theories were put forward. Station Officer Edmunds was of the opinion that the fire had been deliberately started by the men as a diversion, to cause confusion among the besiegers during which they hoped to make a bid for freedom. Another commonly held view was that a gas pipe had been punctured and ignited by one of the many bullets fired into the property. No one, it seems, will ever know for sure.
Whatever the cause it brought to an end a tragic affair which resulted in death and injury to members of the police and fire brigade, and the demise of the perpetrators.