Alerter

A chill East wind

Incident No.
Date: 18th September 2007
Time: 0215
Type: Smoke in canteen
Address: SLP, Hamilton Road, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Two pumps

Like buses, shouts seem to sudden all arrive together!

I'm sure the Control staff take great delight in setting off our alerters and such an ongodly hour. Not content with the thing shaking itself silly and shattering the peace once, it goes off three times. So while half asleep and rather unsuccessfully trying to insert the right leg in the right trouser leg, you are trying desperately to shut the bloody thing up!

Anyway, I digress...

The tip sheet said 'smoke in canteen' and yes, there were wisps of smoke being whisked away by the brisk and decidely chilly, East wind. Part of the ceiling was taken down as well as some of the floor above to reveal a quite badly burned joist. Much head scratching then ensued to find the cause. Perhaps a crafty fag had been allowed to drop between the floorboards - no, not enough space. Could be an electrical fault - ther was a nicely melted cable - no, not that. The likeliest cause was the wall heater in the upstairs canteen which seems to be on 24/7, that wasn't on the wall but was flat out on the floor!

After Mel's Changing Room tactics were finished with we headed back to the Station.

Home at 0330 and knowing that it would take ages to get back to sleep. Call me sad (if you have to), but I decided to get on with some work and spent the next two hours answering e-mails and updating a customers website!

So writing this at just after midday feels to me more like late afternoon...

I can think of a few people who won't be best chuffed if the alerters go off again tonight!

Lions and tigers, elephants and spiders...

Incident No.
Date: 17th September 2007
Time: 0515
Type: Fire
Address: Africa Alive, Kessingland
Initial Attendance: Two pumps, ended as Make Pumps Six plus Forward Control Vehicle.

Well this week has carried on as last week finished. This time it's a canteen at the Africa Alive wildlife park, just south of Lowestoft.

Crews did well to stop the intense fire from spreading to another eatery and gift shop.

I didn't attend initially but went to the incident at around 0730 to relief some of the guys who needed to get off to work. Not much doing by this time, pumps ferrying water from a hydrant on the main road, making up kit and preserving the scene so that a fire investigation could be carried out.

Rumour has it that the keepers are looking for a chimp who's in possession of a box of matches and a can of petrol!

Got back on station at around 1000 after being relieved by the Bungay pump. Cleaned some hose, serviced the BA sets and chucked a couple of chesse and onion toasties down our necks by way of a belated breakfast.

Busy old station

I take a few days off and the shouts come rolling in!

The most notable one I missed was a Make Pumps Six to James Paget Hospital in Gorleston. The fire was in the Intensive Care Unit which meant evacuating patients and all the necessary equipment.

Seems all was under control quite quickly and hopefully without too much distress to the patients and their families.

Boatyard - again!

Incident No.
Date: 11th September 2007
Time: 1512
Type: Fire
Address: Disused boatyard, Caldecott Road, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Two pumps

Back to the disused Pegasus Boatyard on Caldecott Road. A small fire had been started in the cavernous interior.

Nothing for us to do except make up the 45 and hosereel.

The current theory is that someone is regularly going into the shed to strip out cables for their copper, then set fire to rubbish to cover their tracks.

I don't think this will be our last visit...

Water Rescue - for a cow!

Incident No.
Date: 10th September 2007
Time: 1426
Type: Cow in ditch
Address: Middleton Road, Ballingdon, Sudbury
Initial Attendance: Two pumps - wholetime crew (Blue Watch), Normanshurst and Bury plus the Unimogs from Normanshurst and Bury

A cow stuck in a ditch is now classified as a Water Rescue and therefore gets the full cavalry - two pumps with crews that have trained in water rescue plus two Unimogs carrying all the gear. As Princess Street isn't on the run yet, Normanshurst gets tipped out for the 70 mile 'dash' to Sudbury.

Green Watch only had four riders today so the alerters were put down to call us in to provide extra crew and to have a crew on standby.

Gary Smart drove the 'Mog' with me as the other crew member. With the best will in the world, the Mog isn't the fastest of beasts and has trouble keeping up with other traffic. Now here we are setting off for the diagonally opposite side of the county to get a cow out of a ditch.

We had got well past Diss before both us and Ladder 1 were returned.

This water rescue lark really is Health and Safety gone crazy. In the good old days you'd get a rope around the errant beast and try to haul it out or you would enlist the support of the Mog and winch the walking Oxo cube out. Job done and no harm to anyone.

The resources mobilised to this incident (I'd forgotten to mention that 3 ADO's (Officers) get sent) is ludicrous. All that money for a cow in a ditch. The old system worked for years and with great success. Makes me think of the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it..."

Anyway, it was a nice day for a drive in the country.

Back at Normanshurst two hours after leaving!

Disused Boat Shed, Oulton Broad

Incident No.
Date: 7th September 2007
Time: 1840
Type: Fire
Address: Disused Boat Shed (large), Caldecott Road, Oulton Broad
Initial Attendance: One pump - wholetime crew (Blue Watch), Normanshurst
Final Attendance: Two pumps (Normanshurst 02)

Just mopping up the remains of my stew with a huge dumpling and the alerter starts trilling (I think it's a new slimming method from Weight Watchers!).

Make Pumps 2 for Breathing Apparatus at a disused boat shed facing on to Oulton Broad. It's the second time I've been to a fire here. I think kids get into the not so secure shed and set fire to piles of rubbish.

Luckily the fire didn't take hold and was really a case of opening doors at each end of the 100m plus building to let the smoke ventilate.

Derelict Caravans at Somerleyton

Incident No.
Date: 6th September 2007
Time: 2046
Type: Fire
Address: Derelict caravans, Green Lane, Somerleyton
Initial Attendance: One pump - wholetime crew (Blue Watch), Normanshurst
Final Attendance: Three pumps (Normanshurst 02 and 05)

I've probably mentioned this before. Why can I be wide awake when the alerter goes off in the middle of the night but if it goes off while having a snooze on the sofa I'm in a befuddled daze!

It was about quarter to ten and I was snoring my way through some crap on the telly when the peace was rudely shattered. A bull in a China shop comes to mind, blundering around getting trousers on, shoes, mobile phone, alerter. I was still first in and saw on the tip sheet that we were going to a fire in derelict caravans at Somerleyton (Make Pumps 2 for water). This would be a nice drive down dark, winding country roads!

We were just about to go mobile when the bells went down again, this time for the PRT. Job was now Make Pumps 3 because of the lack of a nearby water supply.

The fire was in seven derelict caravans left over from some rock concert. I'd seen guys stripping these old caravans only days before - funny how they'd caught fire just now...

Green Lane is a fairly straight and narrow country road with no hydrants available. After dumping our water into Ladder 1, Howard Clark and myself went off in search of a hydrant. I knew from a previous job that there was a hydrant at the junction of Station Road, right in the village. The water pressure there was terrible, so much so that we had locals coming out wondering why they couldn't get any wet stuff out of their taps!

The guys on the PRT had found a better hydrant just through the village on the 'main' road. So we both used this hydrant, running a shuttle service back to Ladder 1 (nearly two miles away).

Back on Station at around 2340 and time to wash the appliances and all the hose that had been used.

Home after midnight, tea and bed...

What a Quiet Month

I can't believe how quiet the month of August was for shouts - I think we only managed five and three of those were in the last week!

Are people being more safe? Unlikely... And with so few shouts enthusiasm starts to wane. It's not that you want anything nasty to befall anybody but I know I need my adrenalin fix on a regular basis.

Friday 31st saw two shouts, the first to Next on the North Quay Retail Park (nothing to do) and the second in the early evening to a Make Pumps Two for water. The wholetime crew were a tad isolated and the nearest hydrant was about 400m away. We gave them our tank of water, filled up at the hydrant, waited for the stop message to go in and poodled off back to the Station.

Let's see what September brings...