Anaesthetised children who were about to have operations were woken up in order to be evacuated after a fire and an explosion at Great Ormond Street hospital today.

Dr Jane Collins, the hospital's chief executive, said that fire broke out in the cardiac wing of the specialist children’s hospital at around 8.30am, and seemed to have caused a medical gas cylinder to explode.

The 23 patients in the wing at the time, their parents and hospital staff were evacuated. No-one was believed to have been hurt, apart from four firefighters who suffered minor injuries tackling the blaze. The incident has however badly damaged the hospital's cardiac unit and caused major disruption to the treatment of sick children at the hospital.

“There were some children who were due to have surgery this morning so they were already in the process of being anaesthetised," said Dr Collins. "We have already woken these patients up because we want to make sure they are in a stable and safe situation.

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“Depending on how ill the children were they were evacuated to the appropriate place, so a child who was particularly unstable would have been moved to our intensive paediatric unit very quickly." Other less ill children had been evacuated to the patients' hotel across the road.

At least six fire engines and around 30 firefighters were at the scene throughout the morning, as well as several London Ambulance crews and a hazardous area response team. The fire was brought under control by 10am.

A London Ambulance spokeswoman confirmed that four firefighters were treated at the scene for minor injuries inflicted during the blaze. It is understood that they did not require hospital treatment.

Dr Collins described to Times Online how, as the incident unfolded, doctors had decided it was too risky to continue with surgery on child heart patients while it was unclear how bad the fire damage was.

"The most difficult thing is always to make sure that the most unstable patients get to a place where they are safe," said Dr Collins. "There was some window damage in the cardiac intensive care unit.

"Because it was deemed risky to go ahead with surgery while we were still assessing how much damage the fire had caused, they were woken up again."

Since then, preliminary damage assessments had shown that levels three and four of the hospital wing were water-damaged, and level five, the cardiac unit itself, had suffered more severely. "We will need to assess whether and when we will be able to use the cardiac wing," she added.

The hospital has now been able to reopen to admit emergency patients.

All of today's operations have been cancelled, and will be rescheduled according to clinical need, said Dr Collins, but tomorrow's will go ahead as normal.

The cancellations were set to be bad news for Nicky and Victor Foster, who found the road cordoned off as they arrived for a 10am appointment with their daughter Ruby, three, who was due to spend three days at the hospital for a gastrostomy, a procedure where an incision is made in the stomach, often to insert a feeding tube.

"We're just hoping that it still goes ahead - praying that it still goes ahead. It has been quite traumatic for us," said Mrs Foster.

Mr Foster voiced his frustration that his daughter's treatment might be delayed. "It has been a long time coming. I have had to take time off work, and I have to be back (at work) in three days."

His wife added that the hospital was "really good" with fire drills. "They do them daily."

Aerial photos showed staff milling around on the pavement, and a heavy build up of traffic in the area as police redirected vehicles away from Great Ormond Street, near Russell Square.

Temitope Olowu, a cleaner who was working on the fifth floor of the hospital when the fire broke out, said: “We were working away and we were suddenly told there was a fire on our floor, level five so we were all ordered to the nearest fire exit.

“We didn’t really know what was happening. Everyone was keeping calm and just concentrating on getting out of the building. We were sent outside and told to stay there until further notice. We have all be gathered outside now for quite a long while.”

Today’s blaze follows a fire at the Royal Marsden Hospital in January, when dozens of patients were evacuated. Flames tore through the roof and upper floors of the world-class specialist cancer hospital in Fulham Road, London, damaging two wards and five operating theatres. A number of patients were treated at the nearby Royal Brompton Hospital.

Great Ormond Street hospital was founded in 1852 as the Hospital for Sick Children, making it the first hospital providing beds specifically for children in the English-speaking world. In his will, author J.M. Barrie bequeathed the hospital the copyrights to his children’s novel Peter Pan.

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