The Windsor Castle Fire: The Untold Story
Using newly discovered footage and dramatic personal stories from the firefighters who attended the Windsor Castle fire on 20th November 1992 this documentary creates a minute-by-minute account of the battle to save this iconic building. Many who were there that day reveal what really happened behind the castle walls. From an apprentice decorator, one of the first to see the fire, and his fearless actions to rescue priceless works of art, to the numerous firefighters who risked their lives to fight the blaze, including one who witnessed a man trapped in a roof collapse and another who thought two of his colleagues had died in a fireball.
For more than 12 hours, 200 firefighters battled this catastrophic fire as it burnt through the world’s oldest inhabited castle. More than a million litres of water were used to combat the blaze. Firefighters explain the tactics they used as they attempted to extinguish the fire, while others describe the multi-million-pound salvage operation, a race against time to rescue hundreds of priceless paintings and Royal treasures. The Queen’s press secretary at the time, Charles Anson, reveals how the Queen was devastated but philosophical after witnessing the fire for herself. In the aftermath of this disaster the Queen also had to deal with a major row about funding, which ended up changing the Royal Family forever.
Pioneer Productions
Pioneer Productions is one of the UK's most successful specialist factual producers with a reputation for producing innovative, high quality, popular programmes for both UK and US broadcasters. The company prides itself on an industry-leading expertise in science and history, and a passion for telling factual stories in new and engaging ways.
Pioneer is prolific across a broad range of programme genres including history, science, drama-docs, engineering and adventure. The company has produced over 700 hours of programming, sold in over 60 countries worldwide. Clients include Discovery Channel, PBS, National Geographic Channel, History, ABC, TLC, Discovery Canada, and in the UK, Channel 4, Channel 5, the BBC, and ITV.
Pioneer Productions remains at the forefront of factual innovation and has won numerous awards for its output, capturing some of the most extreme weather on our planet in series such as Raging Planet, developing the use of special effects sequences to see inside human and animal bodies in In The Womb, creating pure CGI films such as Journey to the Edge of the Universe, and incorporating life-like CGI into drama-docs such as Cradle To Grave, The Unsinkable Titanic and Hindenburg. As well as continuing to push the boundaries with what’s possible in CGI, Pioneer is also developing unrivalled expertise in live and ‘as-live’ specialist factual with the Great American Eclipse (Science Channel), and the use of innovative technology in Channel 5 wildlife series Nocturnal Britain.
Other recent productions include long-running high-end science show How The Universe Works (Science Channel), as well as Secrets of the Royal Gardens (More4)