being a retained FireFighter in Suffolk
Workshop fire in Blundeston…
All I can assume is that the good folk of Lowestoft have made a collective New Years resolution to be safe in everything they do. Why? Well with only six shouts in by the 18th that’s well below average.
And you just know that when that little black thing shakes itself to bits and wakes the dead, you’ll nearly croak with surprise.
That’s what happened late on Monday afternoon. I was just locking the door to my office, trying to balance all sorts of things when my alerter did it usual pace-maker stopping trick. Luckily, and because I’m writing this, the surprise didn’t actually make me croak!
Run to the car, pull out into the early rush-hour traffic and what seems an all too leisurely drive to the fire station behind someone doing barely 20mph. You know they haven’t made it out of 2nd gear…
I’m second in and pick up the drivers tally and learn we’re off to Blundeston, a village just to the north of Lowestoft, famous for its connections to Charles Dickens and its prison!
As we pull off the main road and head towards Blundeston we can see a pall of smoke rising lazily above the village – so it’s a job…
I pull up behind White Watch on Lowestoft South 01 and run a length of 70 to them so that they can top up from our 1800 litres (400 gallons). Mel and Shambles don BA and approach the workshop from the opposite side to the BA crew from White.
It seems that the fire was in a workshop attached to the rear of a bungalow. The blaze totally destroyed the workshop and its contents but was stopped before it could take hold of the bungalow.
We lit the pumps up like Christmas trees because there’s is little if any street lighting, trying to throw as much light as possible on the incident. Portable lighting was set up at the rear of the bungalow to enable everyone to see what was happening. Early on we were warned that they may be asbestos present so dust masks were worn and the fire kit of the BA wearers was backed ready to go off for specialist cleaning and/or to be destroyed.
And with the fire extinguished and all the gear stowed we headed back into Lowestoft stopping off to get fuel at Tesco’s. While filling up our gallant crew tried helping a damsel in distress who couldn’t start her car but were singularly unsuccessful.
Back to Normanshurst, top up the water, wash the pump and finally back home two hours after I’d planned to be there…
– IAN CARTER (www.accessiblewebsites.co.uk)
