RESEARCH into spectacular fires in Somerset that I had unwittingly initiated many years ago flashed back to memory early on Easter Sunday morning, as I stood in awe at the Somerset bus terminal watching first one then another of the 20-odd buses neatly parked there, going up in flames.

Within half an hour seven buses, most of them modern air-conditioned vehicles that hadn't lost their factory shine, were gone, beyond salvage, at a cost of over $2 million.

It was undoubtedly the work of one or more saboteurs, evidenced by the fact that the caps to the gas tanks of the vehicles had been removed. Intensive investigations are under way. An eerie feeling came over us, being among the few early birds first on the scene. The buses had been exploding with the sound of canon normally heard only on day of the Queen's Birthday Parade, when the Bermuda Regiment fires off a 21-gun salute. The "booms!" from the blazing buses could be heard all over Somerset.

It was the first boom that woke up most neighbours, leaving them wondering what was going on. Some said they were so absolutely startled when the second and third booms came with almost precision-like timing ? they did not know whether to lie low and take cover, or to check the outside. One lady living more than a mile away from the terminal said it sounded like nearby gunfire, so she dropped to her knees and covered her head with her arms.

Back to our reminiscing about Somerset fires. So far as we could ascertain, there have been very few conflagrations in Sandys Parish. There was the fire in February 1950 that destroyed the old civilian recreation club situated to the east of Lefroy Seniors' Home and near Lodge Point at Ireland Island.

Believe it or not, previous to Easter Sunday morning, the most spectacular, costly and mysterious fire was only yards away (as the crow flies) from the bus terminal. It was at The Armoury, that imposing building now housing the Mangrove Bay Post Office. The date was August 4, 1908.

The building was then known as Somerset House, the Mecca for trade in the parish. The report on that fire first came to our attention in the 1980s while undertaking research in the Archives for the book we published in London in 1988 called . We instinctively made a marginal note of that fire in our journal for future reference, and it came in handy over the weekend.

Thanks to the Bermuda National Trust, a more cogent history on The Armoury is contained in its book , the third volume in its series on historic buildings in Bermuda. On page 37 it notes that The Armoury was built between 1865 and 1870.

It was distinguished for having been burnt twice by arsonists, successfully in 1891 after two or three failed attempts; and again in 1908. Originally, Somerset House was a two-storey structure, used as a wholesale and retail outlet for groceries, dry goods, building materials, liquor and patent medicines.

By the time of the 1908 fire Somerset House was occupied by Trimingham & Company's dry goods store; by Mr. C.S. Tucker as a grocery store, and as a pharmacy by Dr. T.M. Allen. That fire was the one that sent be scurrying back to the files of yesterday to learn more of how Somerset House ended up being, like the buses, "a blackened ruin".

All those establishments with their entire stock were demolished, and at the height of the fire "flames bellowed red and terrible. Smoke waves, yards thick and black and stifling swirled about them, the fire licked at their scorching walls and when the building fell into itself as it were a Vesuvian blast of flames and smudge, sparks and cinders shot upwards to the skies."

There was a complete absence of any apparatus for coping successfully with the conflagration. An attempt was made by a few willing workers to stop the flames spreading by the use of a few buckets of water; but they might just as well have tried stopping the tide from coming in, reported the . The fire broke out after midnight, and police alerted the neighbourhood by blowing their whistles. Sergeant Down tried to make communication with the Army detachment stationed at Boaz Island. When that failed, someone went "by wheel" to alert the troops. They dispatched a detachment of men with a fire engine and hose, but at that time Somerset House was doomed.

The estimated loss from the fire was between eight and nine thousand pounds. An inquest into the fire was held but who ever was responsible for it was never caught, although the paper said there were many points of conjecture.

There are some similarities between the fire at the bus terminal and the one at Somerset House. Fortunately for the neighbourhood quick action by the police and Fire Department stopped the spread to the immaculate homes cheek by jowl with the buses on the southern perimeter of the depot.

Only a wire fence separated them. The close proximity of the Somerset Police Station to the bus depot, and presence of a security guard on duty, was not a deterrent to the arsonist.

In the 1908 fire the Somerset Police Station was located 400 yards from The Armoury on the same main road towards Public Wharf and Cambridge Beaches. Only years later the station was relocated to its present site, on the corner of the main road and Beacon Hill Road. The western end of that building originally housed the Somerset Post Office.