Eastbourne Fire

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends on what you are smoking...

[Paul Herber]

Dang, wrong newsgroup. For some reason I though this was uk.media.radio.archers I was looking for a bad taste nomination.

[Dave Liquorice]

Didn't several hunded people on the pier past the arcade get off safely? I'd assume walked off down the windward side before the fire got hold. I'm sure the news would have made a bigger fuss if they had been "trapped" and had to be evacuated by sea.

The fire services normally (used to?) go around reasonably regulary checking hydrants... Where there are hydrants f*ck knows where the nearest one to this place is. Oh, I remember there is an air vent and hydrant at the top of the rise on the new main they put in a few years back. It's not painted yellow or have any signage though. That's several hundred yards away. Failing that and again several hundred yards away in the opposite direction their might be one on the "old main" where it crosses a road.

Mind you with only a single pump and retained fire crew within 10 minutes, houses around here have a tendancy to pretty much burn down if they catch fire. Pumps from other stations take the best part of

45 mins to get here.

[spuorgelgoog]

You'll have to try a hell of a lot harder to get one of those /here.

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

I bet they kept their distance rather than up close and personal like they would be on the walkways around the building. They'd also have plenty of time to get back to the boat(s) should it start to spread along the pier decking. an't help wondering what they did other than watch unless hoses had been run past the building or there is some form of fire fighting water supply available along the piers length.

[Nightjar]

At the very least, they would have checked that everybody had been evacuated safely. However, I suspect they must have done a lot more than that, as the fire did not spread to the end of the pier. Perhaps they had portable pumps with them.

[Nightjar]

Just on the radio - the Police are now treating the fire as suspicious and are asking anybody with video footage of the area around the entrance in the hours leading up to the fire to contact them.

[harryagain]

The obvious thing is to use seawater and some sort of self priming pump.

[harryagain]

[harryagain]

I saw a picture of boats spraying water.

[Nightjar]

That was one of the RNLI lifeboats, which carry a couple of fire hoses.

[Jabba]

DerbyBorn wrote

Police now believe the fire was started deliberately.

[Nightjar]

As I suggested earlier and you dismissed as too expensive.

Colin Bignell

[Scott M]

Weston-super-Mare - just up the road from Burnham.

The walkway up to the pier is still slatted which is nearly as good. It does mean the inside could now be a landlocked building in Slough though!

[damduck-egg]

Wonder what the problems with slats are, Surely it cannot be related to a little incident on Bournemouth pier back in the summer of 76 when I had to replace a beer cooler with a bigger one.The removed one had about 3 gallons of water at about 2 degrees C in it which without thinking I just poured out over the deck, unfortunately the tide had gone out and quite a lot of people were taking advantage of the shade below to cool off, they got cooled a little more when the sudden cold shower hit them. I can still hear the screams and the oaths.

G.Harman

[Tim Streater]

They were just examining the Enigma rotor settings book from the U-boat they'd captured earlier in the day, and your water washed all the ink off the pages.

[Rick Hughes]

Interesting program on TV a year or so back ... showed that UK (and most) fire fighters use wrong technique ... power nozzles just emptying vast quantity of water - trying to drench fire out.

The new system (one of the Scandinavian countries have adopted it) used much higher pressure, and you had in effect a mist of water ........ a fraction of water was needed and it suffocated the fire in seconds.

Impressive demos done ... but maybe only for 'in room/house' fires and not form outside.

[Harry Bloomfield]

A powerful jet of water will travel a distance, a mist of water will just drift on the breeze - so maybe not very effective.

[Dave Liquorice]

That's what you do to contain the fire from a distance. They also shift serious amounts of water, a jet will normally have two fireman holding onto it to keep it under control and pointing in the right direction. A jet has a hefty recoil.

Correct the little "hose reel" has a variable nozzle on the front from jet to circular spray. The spray is reasonably effective at putting out superfical fire but it also absorbs a lot of heat so the firemen can move forward behind the spray and not get quite as cooked. It may also help knock the smoke out of the air as well but not sure about that.

[Johny B Good]

Both! Knowing that this standard rule of pedantry will bite you no matter how 'careful' you are, I decided not to fight it and just let it happen naturally. :-)

BTW, did you get the "Mongrels" refererence... anyone?