Me in charge? You’re having a laugh!

This has to be a record in recent times – two weeks on the trot and we weren’t subject to a lecture!

Mel had devised a drill for two crews and whisked away his helpers for their briefing. Prior to this Mel casually informed me that I would be in charge of the ‘incident’, being Officer in Charge of the first pump.

No pressure then! I’ve never done this before and perhaps being given just a few minutes notice was a good idea, any longer and I’d have stayed at home to wash my hair or something lame like that.

It wasn’t just me that would be working outside their ‘comfort zone’. Pump operators were chosen from the non-appliance drivers – in other words using the main pump is not what they would normally do at a job, they’d be in BA, running hose or one of the hundred other jobs.
My pump operator was Howard Clarke with Paul ‘Nubbs’ Newberry acting as pump operator on the PRT.

The only information I was given was that we were attending a flat fire, which is all you’ll ever get on a tip sheet, and that two pumps were attending.

We pulled up at the ‘job’ and I could see a women (ably acted by Rachael ‘Princess’ O’Connell) at the open first floor window. She had a baby in her arms and smoke was issuing from the window. Before we came to a halt I requested that the 9m ladder be placed to effect a rescue here and that a hosereel, a covering jet, and two BA be readied.

I then proceeded to do a 360 of the building, informing Mel that I would put back an assistance message, persons reported. When I got to the rear of the building I could see another casualty hanging out of the first floor window.

When the PRT arrived I instructed Richard Belsey to get a 9m ladder round to the rear to rescue the casualty seen hanging out of the window.

And it’s about now that things started to turn to rat shit. Mel applied the pressure by constantly asking when the next BA team was going to be committed, that we needed a covering jet to protect the adjoining building and where was the water??

To compound the lack of experience on my part and that of the pump operators we had some ‘problems’ dealt to us. Firstly, the hydrant we had set into was ‘hit’ by a vehicle and put out of action. So, the next hydrant had to be set into. Then Ladder 2 overran its supply and was deemed to be out of action. This meant disconnecting most of the hose from Ladder 2 and reconnecting this to the PRT (including the feed from the hydrant).

At this point we had lost water and had two BA teams in the building. There was nothing we could do but to sound the evacuation signal (short blasts on the Acme Thunderer whistle). Within a minute the two BA teams appeared and made their way to BAECO (Ben ‘Horney’ Horne). One team didn’t have enough air to be recommited so they were told to dump their sets. The second BA team were kept on air to be recommited once we had a good supply of water again.

Getting an adequate supply of water was going to be problematic as the PRT was virtually empty.

For the purpose of the drill I was informed that all casualties were accounted for but we needed to get main jets to work on the building – 3 at the front and 2 to the rear.

Unfortunately, I instructed the crews to make the three deliveries on the PRT into five by using two dividing breeches. With all the hose we had run out already this meant unravelling the spaghetti-like mess. I’d totally forgotten the Lightweight Portable Pump (LPP) on Ladder 2 and was instructed to get this working. So, the now sweating and ever-so slightly knackered crews carried the LPP to the one remaining hydrant and proceeded to get two deliveries to work.

And it was about now that we were given the ‘knock off and makeup’ instruction.

Considering there were a number of people doing jobs they’d never done before, the whole thing could have been worse. I took a lot away from the drill – there’s plenty to think about as OIC, you don’t always get the fire engines that would normally attend, the situation is always fluid and if it can go wrong, it will!

The two hour drill session certainly went much quicker than if we were sitting in a lecture fighting off the onset of sleep!