A HASLEMERE hair salon was back in business within 48 hours of a devastating fire breaking out.

Headcase Barbershop at the top of the High Street is now working out of another hairdressers, after the fire badly damanged the listed building in the early hours of last Friday.

Police closed off Haslemere town centre while Surrey Fire and Rescue fought the fire.

Luckily no one was hurt and the occupier of the flat above was away on holiday.

Headcase owner Mandie Coombes, who arrived on the scene in pyjamas to deal with crisis, was back in business on Monday with her team, working from The Hair Chair at the back of the High Street car park.

She was full of praise for the community efforts as nearby businesses rallied around to help.

Mandie said: “The fire brigade were amazing and local pubs and shops provided refreshments for the emergency services. Lots of salons offered to help until we are back up and running again. I would like to thank everyone in the town for all their generous offers and although it is a sad situation, this makes it all that bit better.

A friend of the salon owner has also started a crowd funding site via www.Gofundme to help the business get back on its feet, with a £2,000 target. Some £675 was pledged in just three days.

An eyewitness working nearby said she first realised something was wrong at about 5.20am. The emergency services reacted quickly after the alarm was raised and the flames spread to the roof. Six fire crews from Farnham and Haslemere tackled the blaze and prevented it from spreading to the adjoining house.

Incident commander Paula Hartwell, of the Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The fire spread to the top floor and took hold of the roof. We used a turntable ladder from Guildford to create a fire break to prevent it spreading to an adjoining residential house.

“We prevented the fire from developing any further and causing damage to the adjacent building, which is a great result.”

Officers were still working to make the scene safe more than three hours later following fears that part of the building might collapse.

Surrey Police and paramedics were also called to the incident. The High Street near the town hall and Petworth Road remained shut during the clear-up.

The incident caused major disruption during the morning rush hour, with access via the Petworth Road entirely cut off.

Haslemere’s mayor, councillor Sahran Abeysundara, arrived to inspect the damage and talk to the emergency services as traffic coming south down the High Street was diverted around the town centre via West Street.

There was extensive smoke and fire damage to the timber framed 17th century building. An investigation into the cause of the fire was ongoing this week.

Ivan Macquisten, who took photos featured on page three, said: “The emergency services were there in force and had everything under control, which was very reassuring. From what I could see, the real difficulty will be ongoing work to repair the building and how that might affect traffic flow at the top of the High Street.”