Category: Shouts

I just hope nobody was around last night to witness my theatrical exit, enroute to the fire station!

Front door locked, I turned and built up a head of speed down our long concrete ramp. In an attempt to shave milliseconds off my journey time, I made to leap across the corner of the path and onto the driveway. Unfortunately, on takeoff, my foot slipped and I was flying through the air heading straight for the driveway and, if I didn't stop quick enough, a nasty looking rose bush! With arms outstretched, I demolished the brick edging to the path and ended up face down on my driveway…

A quick look around and I couldn't see anyone guffawing at my antics. With a few heartfelt "f**k its" I started a slow, loping run over to the fire station.

Cheesey was in ahead of me (he obviously had made a much safer exit from his house!) and took the drivers tally. With a crew of six we were second pump in to a house fire in Jacobs Street, Lowestoft. White Watch were riding with a crew of four so us having six meant we could provide two BA teams, if required.

To access Jacob Street there are some tight spots as you make your way in on the only route suitable for fire engines.

Two BA were already in the terraced house as Simon and I made our way to the house as the next BA team.

Thankfully the fire hadn't got out of control and our services weren't required. Oxygen therapy was given to the occupants who were being looked after by a neighbour.

With everything cleared away, we went door to door, checking that the homeowners had smoke alarms and advising them that they can request a Home Fire Safety Check from Suffolk Fire and Rescue. At a guess I would say that at least half of the properties did not have a smoke alarm fitted. These were supplied there and then and installed.

A fire at any time is a devastating event. Potential loss of life, damage to property, insurance claims and so much more. But a fire at Christmas seems so much worse…

That's it, job done, head back to Normanshurst.

Except that more people have arrived back home and struggled to find a parking space. In the space of 100 metres Cheesey had to slow to a crawl twice to squeeze through narrow gaps. If we had been going to the shout, this delay in getting there could so easily cost a life. Sounds dramatic but it's true. Sometimes seconds do really count. Unfortunately, when returning home and searching for a parking space, the last thing on most peoples mind is whether there's enough space for a fire engine to get through. Spare a thought though… if it was your house that was on fire, you'd want us there as quickly as possible, wouldn't you?

There was no chance of a Saturday lie in as my alerter shattered the peace at half six this morning.

Green Watch were off to a boat that was slowly sinking on Lake Lothing in Oulton Broad. A quick call to Control confirmed that we were in on standby. But I had a feeling that we weren’t going to be whiling away a couple of hours in the relative comfort of the station.

Sure enough, withing twenty minutes I took a call from Ben on Ladder 1 telling me that the job was now going to Make Pumps 2 for manpower and that we needed to bring the small Lightweight Portable Pump (LPP). Within a few seconds of finishing the call with Ben, the bells went for Ladder 2.

As it was blowing a hoolie outside and a tad cold too, I decided to add any extra layers I could. Before Green Watch had left they had all donned their romper suits (all-in-one fleeces), used with the water rescue gear. I had an extra t-shirt and was able to snaffle Ben’s uniform jumper, which, with my smokehood acting like a balaclava, was all set to keep out the chill!

We changed LPP’s and then headed off to Harbour Road.

Once on scene we had to start ferrying gear to the stricken vessel. In its own little way this was a re-enactment of the Gun Run, as seen at the Royal Tournament. We didn’t have field guns, limbers and a ton of kit to get over walls and chasms but we did have the Fire Service equivalent – the LPP…

The standard LPP is neither lightweight nor particularly portable. It’s a four person lift and we were headed down a steep concrete slope, through a narrow gateway (our whole in the Gun Run wall), across the uneven foreshore (starting to get nautical now), through another gateway, down a ‘gangplank’ onto a floating jetty, up a frost covered narrow ‘gangplank’ and onto the rusting hulk that acts as a floating mooring point for our vessel. And I was worried about being cold!

There then followed a procession of kit – eight lengths of hard suction, the smaller LPP, 2 lengths of 70mm hose, branch, lines, the short ex and much more.

The LPP was positioned near the wheelhouse with the hard suction going through the deck just forrard of this point. But the efforts of the LPP were to no avail. We were competing with the rising tide and the boat was already impaled on the jetty. There were a few jolts and thuds as our rusting hulk started to lift on the tide causing parts of the boat to crack and splinter.

After about an hour of pumping we had to admit defeat. And with that we repeated the Gun Run back to shore and up to the pumps.

I feel sorry for the vessels owners. They have spent a good deal of money buying and renovating the boat and, even though they still had a long way to go, the project has now suffered a major setback.

And, standing next to the boat as we were pumping, with the wind howling across Lake Lothing I reaffirmed with myself that I really am a landlubber!

Tis the season to be jolly… and have RTC's too, or so it would seem.

The alerters went off at 20:42 and on getting over to the station I could see that all three lights were up meaning all Normanshurst's pumps were required.

Green Watch were quickly changing their gear over to the PRT, so it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that we were off to another RTC.

Tonights Magical Mystery Tour was to the coast road between Corton and Hopton. This can be a pretty bleak place at the best times, considering you're only about 400m from the North Sea.

We were greeted by a red Ford Ka resting on its nearside and very close to having ended up in a ditch – thankfully not water-filled. The car was stabilised with the Stab-Fast on one side and two sections of the short extension ladder on the ditch side.

Everyone pitched in setting up the equipment dump – cutters, spreaders, combi-tool, two generators, Glass Master, teardrops, lighting and all the other paraphenalia that may be needed to get the young female driver out of the car.

Fairly quickly the roof was peeled back and numerous helping hands gently lowered the driver on to the waiting ambulance trolley. The ambulance crew then tended to the casualty while we made up all the gear and headed for home.

Considering how close we were to the Suffolk / Norfolk border, we were all surprised that Norfolk hadn't snaffled this incident for themselves. But perhaps they had. Perhaps they know that before too long Lowestoft will be going native and transferring to Norfolk!

Take a look at how the Alerter website is taking shape. You can now see brief reports of shouts that we attend – updated as soon as possible after our return and even install the Normanshurst Desktop Alerter.

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With a heavy frost and glistening roads, it was almost inevitable that we would get an RTC this morning.

Before the first spoonful of Cornflakes had made it out of the dish, my alerter springs into life. Shouts are rare at this time of day (07:43 to be precise) and the thought was that we must be off to an RTC.

I slipped and slid my way over to the station just as the PRT with Red Watch onboard edged gingerly out on to the road.

Considering how icy it was we got a crew of five pretty sharpish and headed off for Victoria Terrace, on the sea front in the south of Lowestoft.

As we pulled up it was difficult to see the vehicle involved. Then, as we pulled past the PRT, we could see a car on its passenger side, positioned perfectly between a lampost and a small tree. A stunt driver would never have been able to get the car into that space, especially considering the nearness of a 3 foot high wall!
It's difficult to understand exactly what happened or indeed follow the course the car and driver took to end in such a spot.

Take a look at the pics and see for yourself.

The driver was more shaken than injured and was fairly easily extricated through his sunroof. And good old Stab-Fast had an outing too – again you can see this in the pics.

And that was that. Back to Normanshurst through Lowestoft's rush hour and the chance to eat my thoroughly soggy Cornflakes.

Take a look at how the Alerter website is taking shape. You can now see brief reports of shouts that we attend – updated as soon as possible after our return and even install the Normanshurst Desktop Alerter.

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Just take a look at this pic. It's a TV that caught fire after a candle was left on top – possibly a tea-light from the round mark.

But take a look at the 'boney hand' effect caused by another candle that was on top of the telly…

Click on the pic for the larger version.

Date: 15th November 2008
Time: 0101
Type: Smoke from flat
Address: London Road North, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Normanshurst 01 and 02
Final Attendance: Normanshurst 05

My slumbers were shattered by the shrill call of that blessed alerter!

I made it across Normanston Drive, narrowly avoiding being mown down by Ladder 1 as it headed off into town.

We followed a few minutes later with the idea of going down Old Nelson Street as this runs behind London Road North and some of the flats have entrances from there. However, we could see Ladder 1 in London Road North and I doubled back to join them. There were no visible signs of fire or smoke in this area and we were getting conflicting reports of where the incident might actually be situated.

Ladder 1 with White Watch on board looped back through town one way while we went in the opposite direction towards Old Nelson Street again. We pulled up next to the rear entrance of the London Road flats and Dennis went off to investigate. Just a few seconds later and he was calling for two BA, BAECO and a hosereel. It was then PTO in for the pump, start running the hosereel out (and extending it from its normal 60m to 120m), laying out a covering jet (consisting of four lengths of 45) and water on to the hosereel.
The Watch had also arrived and lent a hand getting all the above done plus lighting, tool kits etc.

Mel and Cheesey were committed in BA and found two separate seats of fire which were quickly extinguished.

The job had gone to Make Pumps 3, presumably to provide enough BA wearers should things have got out of hand.

And that was that…

Time to make up everything and head off home.

As is always the case, I never seem to be able to get back to sleep after a night-time shout. And last night was no different. I can guarantee that I'll nod off in the middle of England's rugby match this afternoon, probably the only thing on the box today that I want to watch.

Today a car ended up in the river at Lowestoft – off the edge of the quay and into the dock.

Cue Armageddon, Charge of The Light Brigade or anything else mildly dramatic you can think of!

As I careered into the drill yard I could see lights up for Ladder1, Ladder 2, the PRT and the Unimog – a full house for Normanshurst. All those lights lit up at once was causing a drain on the National Grid!

There were firefighters heading in all directions and it took a while to find out that it was a water rescue in Lowestoft Dock. Normally water rescue will get a pump and the Unimog from Normanshurst plus the next nearest water rescue team – Princes Street, Ipswich on this occasion. But today the PRT and Ladder 2 were also being sent. Add to this a gaggle (is that the right collective noun) of officers and the scene is set for mayhem down by the river…

I was driving the PRT and we turned out directly behind Ladder 1 for the drive into town. I think I've mentioned in an earlier post that it's not very often we get two pumps turning out together – what a spotters delight that would have been to have seen that today!

And that's as exciting as it got. The car didn't have anybody on board and so the cavalry were returned to their various home stations.

At the same time as all this was happening Control were dealing with an incident on Felixstowe Docks and a cooker fire in Kelsale (near Saxmundham). I think they'd had a hectic half hour or so marshalling pumps and resources around the county.

Now it's back to work, brain in gear (now there's a joke) and try to get some work done…

Date: 2nd November 2008
Time: 0052
Type: Fire
Address: Kingswood Close, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Normanshurst 01 and Clifton 01
Final Attendance: above plus Normanshurst 02 – persons reported.

Another shout in the wee small hours. When you get to my ripe old age, you need all the beauty sleep you can get!

Hot-footed it over to the station and saw we were off to Kingswood Close, south of the river from us.

The tip sheet said 'persons reported' which always gets the adrenalin pumping. Having been into a flat and found a casualty, you know that these things can kick off and it all tends to focus the mind wonderfully!

We mobilised with a crew of four – Dennis Newton (OIC), Andy 'Cheesey' Armes (driver) and myself and Greg in BA. We're normally tight for numbers on a Saturday night hence going with just four. This should then mean we have enough to crew the PRT.

We were just about to commit to the incident when the Stop message went in, saying that all persons were accounted for, two people receiving oxygen therapy from the Fire Service and that the services of the third pump (us) were no longer required.

Back to Normanhurst, give Ladder 2 a quick rinse, have a brew and try to keep out of the way of the toxic farts that seem to be rife at this time of the morning!

Back home to lay awake for ages before sleep eventually (and I mean eventually) washes over me…

Date: 20th October 2008
Time: 1951
Type: Smoke issuing
Address: Britten Centre, Lowestoft
Initial Attendance: Normanshurst 01 and 02

I didn't really look at the tip sheet – only to see we were heading for The Britten Centre in Lowestoft and reports of smoke being seen.

We all thought it would be a Smoke Cloak that had activated in one of the shops of the Britten Centre. Smoke Cloaks are an automated way of filling a shop with smoke to make it virtually impossible for a burglar to find their way into (or out) of the shop once the burglar alarm has been activated.

Cheesey was driving and he headed for the pedestrian entrance to the shops between the Library and the Elderley People's Club. Just as we pulled up Steve Mullen (OIC of White Watch tonight) called us up on the handheld radio to suggest we approached from this direction. Cheesey took Ladder 2 down the footway between the buildings, stopping outside QD.

Wisps of smoke could be seen coming from one of the permanent (and well secured) market stalls. As Ladder 2 was closer (White Watch had come into the Britten Centre via the Bus Station) we used the Combi tool (cutters and spreaders) to force entry to the stall through one of its metal roller shutters.

As an orange glow became more obvious under the shutters, I ran out two lengths of 45 and charged it. It's usual practice to run out a covering jet like this in case things go tits up and the hosereel just isn't enough…

Mel and Greg set about the shutters – cutting and spreading until a nice 12 inch high aperture had been made. Right on cue, a keyholder for the stall arrived, opened another shutter, allowing the hosereel to douse the small fire that was situated under the counter.

And with everything out and all the gear stowed it was time for everyone to practice their Pete Beale (remember him Eastenders fans) impressions…

"Pound o' carrots, get ya luvverly carrots here sweetheart"

"Melons, luvverly ripe melons"

Thankfully, before long, we were off back to Normanshurst and all the would-be barrow boys called it a night…