A BUSINESSMAN staying at the Moat House Hotel revealed the guests only realised how lucky they had been once they had escaped.

Steve Bell from Birmingham said guests making their way along the corridor towards the fire escape behaved calmly and only went into shock once they were in the safety of the car park.

Mr Bell, aged 40, who is a sales director with Pilkington Tiles, had been staying in the hotel with five of his colleagues and had been due to meet a major customer at the Clifton branch of the company yesterday morning.

He said: "We were all okay and people were quite calm until they got to the car park and realised what could have happened.

"I wasn't frightened because there just wasn't enough time to be frightened and we all just made our way towards the fire escape without any panic."

Mr Bell and other guests were taken to the Pack Horse Hotel following the blaze where they waited until firefighters allowed them back into the building to collect their belongings.

He added: "More than anything everyone was very, very tired because we had not had much sleep.

"Our belongings were fine, fairly smoke-logged but everything was in one piece.

"Obviously our meeting had to be cancelled.

"I still came into work, but I'm looking forward to getting back to my wife and won't be hanging around."

Mr Bell had phoned his wife as soon as he had the chance yesterday morning fearing she would have heard about the fatal fire on the television news.

"Luckily she had not heard anything, so she hadn't been worried."