Not sure if 'gaggle' is the correct collective noun to describe a group or gathering of fire engines. All I could find on the Internet was a forum where some ladies had posted their collective nouns for various sized groups of firefighters. These ranged from a 'moist of firefighters' for the equivalent of one crew, a 'damp of firefighters' for two crews and lastly a 'drippingly wet of firefighters' when more than 20 firefighters were spotted in one place!
Hmm… Think I'll just settle on a gaggle of fire engines for this post.
Last night was our drill night and arranged before us was a veritable bevvy of brand-spanking new fire engines – well three of them to be precise.
For the retained firefighters at Normanshurst this was our chance to look over the new appliances and for the drivers to take them out for a run.
These three appliances will all be used as Pump Rescue Tenders (PRT's) in other parts of Suffolk. Normanshurst is due to get the same truck but with different equipment as an ERT (Enhanced Rescue Tender). There is a rumour that to fall in line with the new 4 letter acronyms being used by Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service (e.g. CARP – Combined Aerial Rescue Pump) the ERT needs an extra letter. As these appliances are still used as fire engines then it would be fitting to add the letter P ('I'll have a P please Bob!'). Therefore the new ERT's will be known as Pump, Enhanced Rescue Tender or PERT. Then we can all describe it as a 'PERT little fire engine'!
Five of us drivers piled into one of the pumps for a guided tour of the 'flight deck'. There are controls everywhere. You got central locking on the doors and lockers, a computer that displays everything under the Sun to you, lights, strobe bars, red rear strobes and a set of sirens that can probably be heard in the next county!
The driver can control the siren form either the traditional foot switch, a button on the end of the indicator stalk or the two road horn buttons situated on the steering wheel. If these don't attract the attention of other road users there's always the bull horn. If that doesn't do the trick we have a PA at our disposal – 'Oi, dickhead. Didn't you hear the sirens, see the lights and wonder why all the traffic parted like the parting of The Red Sea – move over!!'. And, failing all that, just resort to the good old normal road horn…
I went off for a drive, with Fred (one of the brigades driving instructors) in the OIC seat. I was hoping that Fred wasn't going to treat me to his usual tirade of 'F**k this, f**k that, for f**ks sake', etc. And, thankfully, we had a good drive over to Gorleston and back, some at speed and on blues and two's (not quite right now as it isn't the usual neenah anymore…).
These new pumps have got a top speed of around 72mph, which is slower than our dear old Ladder 2. This M reg pump can make it up to around 85mph on a good day. But what the new pumps lack in top end speed they more than make up for in grunt. They certainly get a good head of speed up from a standing start and you're over 40mph before you know it.
And to round the evening off we had a tour of the lockers, equipment stowage, tried the hosereels (now high up in the middle lockers) and all had a go at getting the fire engines to sit down at the rear or to kneel up – all done from a little remote control in the pump bay.
Not a bad drill night, if I say so myself. It's boys and their toys I suppose…