A firefighter has relived the horror of the House of Reeves blaze, after a father-of-two admitted torching the 150-year-old furniture store.

On Friday Gordon Thompson, 33, admitted starting the fire which decimated the historic Croydon landmark on August 8 last year.

John Thompson, 52, was crew manager of a Purley fire station crew sent to try and put out the inferno which became a defining image of the London riots.

He said: "When we got the call there, as we got close we saw the smoke, and as we arrived at Reeves Corner, everyone was shocked to see it with their own eyes."

He said: "It was the most intense fire I have seen in 25 years of service.

"The heat was unbearable. Everything had been burnt away. There was no internal structure, it was just a shell - we were worried about it collapsing."

"We realised then, as tragic as it was, then there was nothing we could do to save it. We set about trying to protect the other buildings."

"It really was a sad evening. As someone who was born and bred in Croydon it is something I will never forget.

"I remember shopping there in the high street in the early sixties with my grandparents. House of Reeves was always the focal point as one of the oldest parts of Croydon."

He said the intensity of the fire that night was because of the age of the building, which would have been made of very dry timbers, and how furniture was stacked up inside.

Commenting on Thompson's guilty plea, he said: "I'm glad that now some justice has prevailed."