The owner of the pub, Simon Clarke, said that he had a full house as they were celebrating his second year as owner of the business as well as his 53th birthday.

“I had some friends from Joburg as well as regular patrons that celebrated with us. Looking back we are just thankfullthat no one was hurt and that the wind that blew on Friday calmed down on Saturday.”

Mr Clarke said that the incident happened shortly before 21:00. He together with party goers tried to extinguish the flames with fire extinguishers, but it kept on spreading.

The ablution block is situated about 100 metres from the main building and serves as bathroom facilities for campers as well as additional facilities for when the pub is busy.

“The plan is to bring in portable toilets for the time being because the bathrooms inside are not nearly enough when it gets busy, like on Sundays when we have our carvery.”

Mr Clarke says that he suspects an electrical short of some sort to be the cause of the fire. The estimated damage amounts to R180 000.

• Numerous fires roared through farms in the Middelburg district over the last couple of days. The Middelburg Fire Department reported that they fought seven different fires over the weekend.

Dry and windy conditions made extinguishing fires especially difficult.