Date: 24th June 2008
Time: 2338
Type: Fire
Address: Camp Road, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Normanshurst 01
Final Attendance: Normanshurst 02
These night time shouts are getting to be a habit now. I, along with all the others, need my beauty sleep. And judging by what I saw staring back at me from the mirror the other morning, I need it more than most!
My finely tuned hearing picked up the reserve Ladder 1 going out on a shout. As the alerter hadn't gone off I felt rather smug as I rolled over and promptly fell asleep. It could only have been a matter of minutes before my alerter was jumping around out in the hall.
Usual routine but not first across to the station. Denis was still there, with writers cramp, after filling in a raft of forms in relation to the little mishap earlier in the evening with Ladder 1.
When we arrived at Camp Road you could see that the fire was in the centre of the complex of buildings that occupy this corner site. Danny O'Neill and Rudi Mann had entered the building wearing BA and extinguished the fire. The fire had taken hold on a stairway and had advanced up to the first floor of what is an empty warehouse.
I went into the building with Dennis, Al and Shambles to hit hot spots and monitor the situation with the Thermal Image Camera. We had to be careful as we moved about on the first floor as the floor was very unsafe – we had already had the odd foot and even leg disappear through the flooring!
And that was about it… Another disturbed night. Dozing off on the settee is a distinct possibly this evening.