Make ’em four!

What someone thinks you mean and what you actually meant can easily be misunderstood? Both parties thinking the message is clear and unequivocal but inevitably leading to unintended consequences. It was an average supper, but spiced with above average mess-table banter. The sharp and playful repartee brought to a sudden halt by the station call bells summoning us to the appliance room. Nine of us were riding that night, five riding the pump escape and myself and three others on West Norwood’s pump.

The rhythmic tapping of the teleprinter keys forming the words that would send us on our way.  Croydon control room had received a 999 call to a fire in a block of flats on the edge of our station’s ground. Whilst both drivers were already in their respective machines, only the sound of the pump’s engine filled the appliance room. The pump escape remained uncharacteristically silent. It had failed to start. It steadfastly refused to respond to the driver’s strenuous efforts to turn the engine over. With the ordering completed there could be no delay, lives might depend on our speed of response. As the Leading Fireman, in charge of the escape, sent a priority message reporting a ‘failed to start’ the pump left the station. Croydon would order a second appliance to complete the initial attendance of two machines, the minimum attendance for any property fire in London.

I knew my crew would be on their own in those first few minutes as we moved rapidly along Christchurch Road where the tell-tale smell of smoke told me that we had a job on our hands. I had no idea that the PE driver had finally coaxed life into the engine, and with the appliance room full of exhaust fumes and the engine revving unmercifully, the appliance pulled on to the station forecourt, into Norwood Road was heading towards the fire.

The council flats were typical of London County Council flats built after the Second World War and into the early fifties. Five stories high it had a common open balcony serving each floor. Individual flats led off each balcony. The courtyard, that would have once been spacious, was filled with residents’ vehicles and other cars left abandoned. As Peter, my driver, tried to drive into the courtyard I saw the thick brown smoke coming from an open doorway on the fourth floor. The frantic waving of the woman on the same balcony only boosted our already adrenaline charged bodies. Pulling into the congested centre of the courtyard the pump stopped and we sprang into action. I didn’t need to tell the two in the back to don BA sets whilst at the same time lay out a forty-five millimetre hose line ready to be hauled aloft. Taking a long line from the locker I ran towards the staircase telling my driver to watch for my signal! He had already engaged the pump, ‘dropped the tank’ and was now running in the opposite direction armed with a standpipe, key and bar towards the nearest hydrant.

Having got to the fourth floor by the stairs (there were no lifts) the distressed owner of the flat was almost incoherent with sobbing but assured me that no one was inside the flat. Her husband had just left for work. The blackened line on the inside of the windows, plus the force of the smoke coming from the flat, told me that a serious fire involved at least one of the four rooms of the flat, possibly more. Crouching low and looking into the passageway only about twelve inches of relatively clear air was visible above the floor. The lethal concoction of noxious and poisonous gases spewing out into the night sky. An angry orange glow filtered through the smoke and with it the signs of rapidly rising temperatures.

Throwing one end the line over the balcony I looked for the BA crew and my driver. The BA crew were nowhere to be seen but the driver was ready to tie the line on to the hose line with its nozzle attached. Without rapid intervention this fire had every chance of spreading into the roof void and involving the pitched roof and then the adjoining flats. Our hand-held radios had been promised but were yet to be issued universally to front line appliances. Only senior officers at major fires came equipped with walkie-talkie radios and they were notoriously unreliable. In theory my driver should have run up the five flights of stairs, taken my message, run down again and then sent any message. But not here, and not tonight given the situation we found ourselves confronting.

As he finished tying the line and before I started to pull up the hose I sought to catch my driver’s attention. Although I shouted down to him he could not hear me clearly above the sound of the pump’s engine noise. So as well as hollering down I extended an arm over the balcony wall as I told him, “Make pumps four.” I extended my arm showing four separated fingers to enforce the message. The driver waved back in acknowledgement as I started to haul up the line, pulling it up forty feet to the fire floor. The hose reached the fire floor at the same time as the BA crew, their sets started up and ready for action. The sound of their breathing exaggerated through their facemasks and told of the strenuous effort of running up the stairs wearing the heavy BA sets.

In the distance two-tone horns were filtering through the background noise of the surrounding streets on a Saturday night adding to sound of the fire and the high revving engine below. The window panes, already blackened, were starting to crack under the effects of the heat. Holding their tallies I watched the BA crew crawl along the hallway, hugging the floor because of the intense heat. It’s when I saw the first wisps of smoke starting to seep through the roof tiles. I shouted to my crew not to bring the ceiling down with the force of the jet. This would have allowed the fire free access into the roof space.

The sound of the two-tone horns was very close, but appeared to have an echo. The sounds were coming from opposite directions so maybe the extra pumps were arriving too. But then four appliances were unlikely to contain the blaze if it broke through into the roof space. Temperatures were already many hundreds of degrees centigrade within the flat and my BA crew are struggling to move forward despite their determined efforts. Reinforcements were required and urgently. I was preparing to send a further priority message, the question then would be make pumps eight… or ten at the first sign of the fire breaking through.

John Williams is the Station Officer from Norbury. He and his BA crew arrive on the balcony. Explanations weren't necessary when I tell him to break into the roof void to check for fire spread. His crew get to work immediately. Extra hose is hauled aloft, a short extension ladder brought up and the roof hatch located. “Your PE is around the back pitching the escape to the rear of the flat,” he shouted between encouraging his own crew to greater efforts. My PE crew were making up for lost time. Having driven the appliance on to the grassed area between the flats and the roadway they pitched the escape. Armed with a jet they had broken through the rear window allowing the pent-up heat to vent. This had made progress into the flat easier and the BA crew enter the rear rooms. Having committed all my available crews I was concerned the remaining reinforcing appliance had still not arrived. 

Norbury’s crew searched the roof space and despite experiencing considerable heat find no fire spread. Meanwhile it’s all too easy to lose track of time when dealing with a drama! Time go’s into overdrive. We were some twenty minutes into the fire and it was expected, in fact required, to send an informative message to Control. My driver finally joined me on the balcony armed with his message pad and his pencil at the ready, a Norbury fireman looking after his pump.

“So what time did you send the ‘Make pumps four’ message Peter?” My pump driver, a London taxi driver on his days off, a man never at a loss for words fell uncharacteristically silent. “Well?” I ask now rather irritated. “I didn’t send that message Guv,” he replied, clearly embarrassed and looking uncomfortable. “I shouted down to you and showed you four fingers. What did you think I was saying?” ‘‘I thought you said, ‘I got this floor,’ and you waved to indicate that all was okay; so I went back to check the pump controls,” he replied.

For me lesson leant, I made a mental note to always brief any driver in future as to just what my signals meant before I gave them. (A Sub Officer – I forgot his name – on Southwark’s Blue Watch was cursed with a stutter. He is alleged to have said, “Make pumps f- f- f- f- f- f- oh effing ell, six.”) The three crews had worked their socks off. They were justifiably proud of containing the fire to the one flat. That was little consolation for the poor, now homeless, flat owners but others would pick up their pieces, the Council and Social Services. It was not part of our brief.

With the stop message sent somewhat late, its wording ‘Four room flat on fourth floor, fifty per cent damaged by fire, one jet, one hose reel, BA,’ did not quite tell the whole story, but Norbury’s Station Officer put his slant on it when, as the crews were making up the gear, said, “You sailed pretty close to the wind there Pikey boy.  Personally, I would have made them four.” Little did he know!

West Norwood fire station. Norwood Road. SE27.

The 'rat-run.'

London's Southwark training school did not only train recruit firemen. Other firemen also attended it and undertook a range of practical training courses. One such course was the breathing apparatus (BA) course. From the 1960s firemen had to have served a minimum of a year before attending the BA school and learnt to wear, use and test the Proto oxygen BA set. I had returned to Southwark to complete my basic training and had seen some of these firemen training, wearing their sets, as they shuffled and felt their way around the perimeter walls of the training school. Blindfolded and wearing their blue bagged Proto sets they practiced the skills necessary to move in smoke and darkness safely.

Occasionally we saw the firemen exiting the smoke chamber, an underground maze and obstacle course. As they came out, either carrying equipment or a training dummy, they were shrouded in the chemical smoke forcing its way out of the chamber at the end of a exhausting training exercise. I was in awe of these real firemen, seeing them standing proud in their breathing apparatus sets. I looked forward to being one myself when the time came.

It was our instructor who announced that the following day the squad would to go down into the smoke chamber. There were excited mutterings as we left Southwark that evening, thrilled and full of anticipation for our first taste of real smoke.

The visit to the smoke chamber came at the end of our normal training day. In fact we thought the instructor was having us on or he had completely forgotten all about it! He had done neither. True to his word he was providing some extra-curricular activity but after the Training School senior officers had left for the day. This was an unofficial lesson. As surprising as it must seem firemen going into smoke during basic training was not something contained in our training syllabus.

There was conspicuous odour as we walked through the smoke chamber door. The aroma of decades of use of chemical smoke bombs, canisters ignited by a fuse, filled our nostrils. The smoke chamber comprised a extensive multi-roomed basement area. It was divided into sections. As our squad walked down the single flight of stairs into the chamber the electric bulk head lights threw out a strange glow of orange light. Their original clear glazing obscured by the build-up of greasy tar residue from the training smoke over the years. However, late on this afternoon we would experience some real smoke.

Directed into the chamber the tang of smoke hung everywhere. To the left was a purpose timber built ‘rat-run’. It comprised an elongated, narrow, enclosed obstacle course. It was built on various, interconnecting, levels and incorporated hazards firemen might experience in any building fire including missing floor boards, ball-bearing rollers, small openings and vertical ladders. The configuration of the ‘rat-run’ could be altered by the BA instructors. Using a series of lockable gates they ensured that only their selected route could be followed by BA firemen undergoing training. Additionally, the design of the ‘rat-run’ allowed those inside only move through it in single file.

“Right” said our instructor, as he guided us towards the entrance of the ‘rat-run’. “Through you go. There is only one possible route to reach the other end.Now find your way out.” He opened the access door and said, “Right you go first. Oh, and there are some dead-ends in there.”

Then, as we waited to enter he switched all the lights off.  We were plunged into total darkness. You could not see a hand in front of our faces. We could taste the stench of the smoke impregnated timber rat-run. It was then the reality of this extra-curricular activity suddenly hit home.

Crawling through on hands and knees or stooped low we moved forward slowly and unsteadily. Some missed their footing, others banged their helmeted heads on low beams, two rolled backed down the industrial rollers they were trying to climb. I took a wrong turning. I led them down a route only to find it blocked by a locked gate! Confusion reigned, as we groped and felt our way through the inter-connected galleries. I had to back up causing a log jam as those trying to move forward pushed against those trying to move back.

Our instructor moved around effortlessly in the blackness. He had a self-assured stride as he monitored our progress to the end of the ‘run’ and before he turned the lights back on. Some exited with sore knees, others with grazed knuckles and we were led into the adjacent, larger, room. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet. This room served as a ‘search’ area by those undergoing their BA training and by proper firemen doing regular BA training exercises. In the centre of the concrete floor room stood a metal ‘crib’. It was piled high with waste sawn wood.

“Right you lot stand back against the walls” he said, in an unusual conciliatory tone.

 “If any of you has had enough smoke make your way out and wait in the drill yard,” he said, pointing to the metal door which opened onto the staircase leading up and out to the drill yard.
“After I have lit the crib and I will put some horse-hair stuffing on the fire. It’s the same horse-hair you might find in a mattress or in a settee or an armchair; just look and learn.”

Even standing some 10 feet away we felt the temperature rise in the confined space. The heat of the fire was reflected on the squads' faces as our eyes smarted and watered from the pungent wood smoke.

As the flames engulfed the wood in the crib the instructor moved closer to the blazier. Taking large handfuls of the horse-hair from a sack he piled it onto the fire almost smothering it. The nature of smoke changed immediately as did the smell. No longer was it a light translucent smoke with a blueish tint, but became an ugly thick brown smoke that quickly obscured our vision. For some of the recruits who had smelt burning hair they quickly recognised the unpleasant odour. It was a smell that we recruits would, in the months ahead, become all too familiar with when attending fires in private dwellings. The smell was noxious. It was pernicious.