The roof was well alight when crews arrived at Oxygen in Oxford Street shortly after midday. Two firefighters had to check no-one was inside the pub or in the flat above while others set to work putting out the flames.

Tony Walsh, of Mayfair Security Services in Cubbington, was dropping a car off at the garage opposite the pub when he saw the smoke.

He dashed in and warned staff about the fire.

Mr Walsh said: "There was black smoke coming out of the building and six foot high flames.

"I immediately went in and evacuated the building. There was one girl behind the counter and I told her to get out and made sure nobody was upstairs.

"The girl was quite calm about it."

Sub-officer Roly Baley, who was in charge of the incident, called for back-up and asked for the hydraulic platform from Leamington fire station so firefighters could access the roof better.

In total 16 men, two crews from Leamington and one from Warwick, tackled the blaze, believed to have been started by a tar boiler on the roof.

It took them 20 minutes to get the fire under control and they left Oxygen at 1.15pm.

Sub-officer Baley said: "The whole roof has not gone but there is some damage.

"Fire damage was restricted to the roof and there was slight damage to one of the flats. Nobody was hurt.

"We put a crew inside because when we arrived it was persons reported so I sent firefighters Lee Tresigne and Tony Vazquez in with breathing apparatus.

"Once we were confident there wasn't anyone inside we fought the fire from the roof while secondary crew got out fire ladders.

"It wasn't a very bad fire."

Staff from Oxygen declined to comment about the fire.