When I went to bed last night I had a feeling in my water… Hopefully the antibiotics will sort that out…

No, honestly, I had a feeling in my water that we would have a shout last night.

And at 3.25am my waterborne premonition came true. My alerter shattered the peace and saw me fumbling my way into my clothes and heading out of the door, eyes still barely open.

As I ran across Normanston Drive I could see two lights up – Ladder 2 and the new ERT were required. Once in front of the turnout printer and with my eyes now starting to focus, I saw we were off to a Make Pumps 5 house fire on Kirkley Run, in the south side of Lowestoft.

Being first in meant I had the drivers tally for Ladder 2 and we booked mobile with a crew of five: Dennis Newton (OIC), me driving and Andy ‘Cheesey’ Armes, Greg Osborne and Peter Read in the back.

A couple of minutes later and the ERT followed with Gary Smart as OIC, John Hubbard driving and Simon Reeves, Pete Brown and Mark Saunders making up the crew. I’m not sure that John was too impressed at having to drive the new ERT, especially in the middle of the night when you’re fumbling for switches and buttons that, in the dark, just never seem to be in the right place!

We arrived in Kirkley Run to find that the property in question was the same one that we’d been to on the 25th February. Again the fire was not confined to just one area – it was on the ground floor and in what was left of the roof. Swift work was needed by Green Watch and the Clifton Road crew to stop the fire from spreading to the adjoining properties.

Access via ladders was somewhat hampered by the all embracing scaffolding that had been erected after the first fire. This scaffolding went up the front and the back of the house and then right over the roof to provide a degree of shelter from the elements. Firefighting and roof tile removal was carried out from the scaffolding.

On Ladder 2 we got ready to supply water to Ladder 1 even though thet were already being fed from a hydrant. The ERT then connected to us, ready to dump their tank into us. It’s a bit of a belt and braces job but, if the hydrant failed, we would be ready to supply 800 gallons straight to Ladder 1.

We extended our hosereel, allowing the full 120m to be fed around the back of the property and up on to the scaffolding at the rear of the house.

At 04:27 the incident was made Make Pumps 7 – bringing the Southwold and Beccles retained pumps to the incident. The ERT was made available from the incident so its crew were withdrawn from an direct involvement so that they could be ready to mobilise to another incident.
We also saw the arrival of a Yarmouth pump followed by its Hydraulic Platform and a support pump.

Seven pumps sounds a bit like overkill for a house fire but there was a continuous requirement for BA teams. They were working on the roof, on the scaffolding, in the property and the neighbouring ones too.

And that was that. Back at Normanshurst before 7am with BA sets to service and a nice cup of tea!

Having been up since the wee small hours, it now feels like it’s time to go to bed. Must be getting old…

– IAN CARTER (www.accessiblewebsites.co.uk)