THE NEWS OF THE WORLD - NOVEMBER 26. 2001.
THE FIRED BRIGADE
London's Burning stars sacked in shake - up
Five stars of London's Burning have had their roles extinguished.
TV bosses have blown them out in a bid to freshen up the 15 - year - old series.
At the same time they've decided to cut the number of episodes in the next series. But deny the whole show if facing the axe.
That makes no differenceto Blue Watch veteran Ben Onwukwe who plays Stuart "Recall" McKenzie.
His character is killed off in he opening episode of the new series, which starts filming tomorrow.
The others being dumped are Edward Peel (station commander John Coleman), Connor Byrne (fire man Rob "Hyper" Sharpe), Fuman Dar (young recruit Ronnie "Hi - Ho" Silva) and Shirley Greenwood (cook Maggie Warboise).
But sexy Heather Peace, who has been expected to quit her role as Firefighter Sally Fields for other acting work, has been persuaded to stay.
She won't have as much to do this time as the number of episodes has been cut from ten to eight.
Despite the cast clearout and the reduction in episodes. ITV bosses insist they have no plans to give up on the show which regularly pulls an audience of eight million viewers.
An ITV spokesman said: "All long running programmes evole and these are evolutionary changes. We are happy with London's Burning and the future of the show is not under threat.
"Peak Practice also has some cast changes and a reduction in the number of episodes and we are very pleased with how well that show is performing now."
The new slimmed - down London's Burning will return to ITV next year.
