A FIRE chief from Basingstoke, who is responsible for Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, has been presented with an award recognising 30 years’ service.

Andrew Chandler, 53, a father-of-two, from Black Dam, has the key role of being London Fire Brigade’s Borough Commander for the City of Westminster.

Mr Chandler said: “I can honestly say it’s been 30 years of enjoyment.

“It’s a great career – it’s wonderful to be able to help people.”

He started as an army fireman at Bramley camp, then moved to Basingstoke fire station and then to West Sussex, before working in London 15 years ago.

These days Mr Chandler is in charge of 250 firefighters serving the busiest patch in the UK – dealing with a massive 11,500 calls a year.

It includes the seat of central Government and famous sites such as Oxford Street, Soho and Buckingham Palace.

Here he has attended a huge range of incidents, including collapsed buildings with trapped people, a major fire in Oxford Street and an embassy siege.

He said: “I definitely work in the most challenging borough in London. I have a huge amount of responsibility but I enjoy my role immensely.

“It’s so unique and varied. With a quarter of a million residents and an extra million people a day either working or visiting, it’s quite unlike any other area in the world.”

Working the patch, Mr Chandler has come face to face with some famous faces.

Once he was called to a suspected fire in Kensington Palace on Christmas Day in the mid-1990s.

He said: “Amazingly, Princess Diana walked me round the palace and together we chatted about our children – because we were both away from them – while we tried to work out why the smoke alarm was sounding.

“That’s a Christmas I’ll never forget. Fortunately, it was a false alarm”.

At Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997, Mr Chandler was asked to form part of the guard of honour.

He and his colleagues paraded within Kensington Palace along with her personal staff, at the start of the funeral procession.

He said: “It was a great honour to be asked to take part.”