Close Encounters, a well known and long-running comic store in Bedford, England, suffered a fire last week, believed to be caused by an electrical fault, damaging their entire storeroom stock. Jeff Chahal, the business's co-owner, told the BBC that thousands of comics have been left "unsellable" due to fire damage. That he does not know exactly what has been lost, as he is still sorting through the items. And that "We are just getting on with it, we will re-stock as soon as possible,"

Posting on Facebook, the store told its customers,

It looks worse than it is, but on Wednesday night an electrical fault caused a fire in our stock room. Luckily, due to us having a fire door (and it being closed) the fire didn't spread at all. As you can see from the other pictures, the rest of the store is perfectly fine, and we're open as usual.

The most important thing is that no one got hurt, and that was because of our fire door. So if you needed a reminder to check your fire alarms, close those fire doors, get some emergency lighting, or just plan your fire escape route from your bedroom (am I the only one that does this?), then use this as a reminder.

Please be patient with us as we're getting the place back to normal, and if you want to help, then come and pick up some comics, Pop figures, or whatever you fancy.

The Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue stated that Chanel had followed the "the golden rules of fire safety", had closed his fire door, which meant the fire was contained and did not spread to the front of the shop. Watch commander Steve Cusack, told them that "The fire extinguished itself due to a lack of oxygen and a major factor in this was the fire door, which had been closed and prevented further spread, aiding the suffocation of the fire."

This meant the store has been able to re-open today, but cannot trade on-line as that included the stock that was damaged.

The shop has since re-opened, but Mr Chahal said as the family-run business has lost all of its internet stock, they can no longer trade online.