After the shambles of a couple of weeks back when this Risk Critical drill had to be cancelled, Tuesday night saw us have another go.

Our previous attempt had been interrupted by three shouts, as the retained firefighters at Normanshurst covered the town for our wholetime colleagues.

So it was back to Combination Drills with the Training Department keeping an eagle eye on everything we did.

We were split into two crews and Mel was Incident Commander.

First it was a confined pitch of the 9m ladder to the side face of the drill tower with a hosereel jet got to work from the head of the ladder. I was part of the crew that then made a dam, using two sections of the short extension ladder, the dam braces, four step chocks and a salvage sheet. The finished article beats any paddling pool you’ll find in Argos!

Then it was get the LPP into position next to the slowly filling dam, connect two lengths of hard suction and then a length of 70 off in the direction of the ERT. I had the dubious honour of operating the LPP, which I’ve always hated because of the problems it casued me on my recruits course. But, for once, everything went swimmingly and I got water first time – which shouldn’t be a problem as you’re not exactly having to lift the water any great distance…

While all this was happening a ladder crew were doing a confined pitch of the 135 ladder to the front face of the drill tower. The plan was then for some poor soul to climb the ladder in the stiffening breeze and get a 45 to work from the head of the ladder into the third floor window. At least it won’t be me, I thought smuggly, as I made myself look busy, fussing around the putting and spluttering LPP.

Just then Mel shouted that he was changing the crews around so that we can all try something that’s out of our comfort zone. I didn’t need Mel to tell me that it would be me shinning up the ladder.

Off I go with the branch draped over my shoulder, plodding methodically up to just below the window sill on the third floor. Ben then made his way up to just below me and fixed the hose becket level with my bottom foot and then fed plenty of hose through. Just to explain – the hose becket effectively takes the weight of the the hose and all the water that’s in it, as this would be impossible for the ‘branch man’ to hold.

A minute or so of soaking the inside of the tower and then we got the order to advance into the tower, get water on again and then advance up to the fourth floor using the vertical metal ladder.

So water off, water pressure released at the dividing breach, becket off, into the tower followed by Ben, becket on again just below the sill and water on… Now up to the fourth floor and a bit more squirting.

And then, faintly, on the breeze and over the radio I heard the words that are music to my ears – ‘Knock off and make up”. That’s it, the drill is over. It’s just a case of making all the gear up and getting it all stored away again.

General consensus was that everything went well, it was good to get our hands on bits of kit that we don’t get the opportunity too often to do. No one was taken off the run, which is good. And to round off the evening it was time for a bit of storytelling as we filled in our brand spanking new Individual Training Records…

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

www.alerter.co.uk