Incident No.
Date: 14th July 2007
Time: 1745
Type: Fire
Address: Sailors Home Public House, Kessingland
Initial Attendance: Two pumps from Wrentham and Clifton Road
Final Attendance: Eight pumps, Forward Control Vehicle and Hydraulic Platform (Great Yarmouth + 1 pump)
For once I got the timing of a wee just right! I heard the wholetimers go out and to say I had a feeling in my water is an understatement. The times you get a shout and you really wish you'd taken the time for a leak…
No sooner were my flies secure and the alerter starting singing its merry little tune.
As is normally the case, I was first in and saw from the tip sheet that we were off to Kessingland and its Sailors Home – I honestly didn't know they had octagenarian matelots living their lives out by the sea in Kessingland. Shows how much I know – it's a pub or at least it was!
We tipped out with a crew of four (Dennis Newton as OIC) and made our way through the early evening traffic and the five mile run to literally the beach in Kessingland.
As we got closer we could see the smoke billowing out from the pub. We pulled up in the narrow road amongst all the locals and holidaymakers who were making the most of this impromptu entertainment.
It was then a case of getting drivers to reverse their cars away from the scene to give us better access and to enable oncoming appliances to get in.
Initially BA crews were deployed within the building but were withdrawn as parts of the ceiling started to collapse.
Within a matter of minutes flames broke through the roof and it was all hands to playing 45's onto the burning roof.
One hydrant had been set into right oustide the pub but this was proving totally inadequate for the amount of water needed. I went back along Beach Road to locate another hydrant (missing one just up a dirt track). The Southwold appliance set into this and by the time they had run about six lengths of hose I had repositioned the pump to make way for the HP.
It was then a fine balance between giving the guys the water they needed at the branch, keeping Ladder 1 supplied and not running dry. We made it – just. Luckily both Ladder 1 and ourselves were able to fill our tanks prior to the HP starting to use water. In a very longwinded exercise we were taking water pumped from the hydrant by Southwold, I was giving water to Ladder 1 who was then pumping to the Yarmouth appliance. They in turn were supplying the HP!
By this time the whole roof and collapsed in leaving the four outer walls.
I think I can safely say that this incident had the highest crowd attendance of any I've been to. Some of the holidaymakers couldn't believe their luck. Sleepy Kessingland and all this drama – beats anything on the box!
Got home at around 2200 hours knowing that the alerter would be going of at 0045 for a retained crew to go back to the scene on fire watch. The alerters went off at 0015, half an hour earlier than planned. Luckily five others turned in that hadn't been on the shout, so they had the dubious pleasure or witnessing a grey 'sunrise' on Sunday morning.