An employee at Kalkara Marina hesitated for only a few moments when confronted by the fire raging on a yacht at one of the pontoons on Tuesday morning.

“All of us had taken a course in fire fighting – so we knew what we had to do,” he said.

Declining to be named, the employee – who has decades of experience – was taken aback when he saw the plumes of acrid smoke and the roaring flames.

“Fibreglass catches fire very quickly – even quicker than petrol,” he said, admitting he was still shaking from the experience.

But when you are confronted with that blaze, it is really impressive

“But when you are confronted with that blaze, it is really impressive. All I can say is praise the Lord that there was no one on board at the time.”

The fire broke out at 12.15pm and the marina staff’s priority was to get the boat out of its berth, a risky manoeuvre using a dinghy to pull it out and away from the boats lying a metre or so away on either side.

“We were scared at the time,” the employee acknowledged, with his colleagues near him nodding in agreement, “but we knew how important it was to stop the fire from spreading and to control the damage.”

The boat - which has been in the marina for over a year - was towed out to the end of the creek where the Civil Protection Department took over, using two fire-boats to control the flames.

Daniel Cilia's photo show the marina's staff taking action to get the boat out before the fire spread to other boats.