The Car Fire

The Divisional Commander sat in his office, a normal working day, the peaceful, quiet moment that precedes  a time of Big Trouble.   The phone rang.   'Assistant Chief here.'  Calling from Brigade HQ. 'Send out for a copy of The Sun.  Take a look at Page 2 column 3.   Take it from there. '

A Staff Officer is dispatched to obtain said newspaper, within which the Divisional Commander finds reference to a fireman scalding his private parts while peeing on a fire.  Oh, how amusing, how typical of the Sun to run a story like that; and how strange that nobody has booked sick or reported any injury overnight, seeing that this event seems to have occurred within his division.   A Divisional Officer is detailed to investigate.....

The Night Before:  the lads reported for duty on a certain small station, carried out their various checks and settled down for the evening.   A call came in: 'Car on Fire, Darley Lane' and off they went to deal with it.

On arrival at Darley Lane, they could see the burning car in the distance.  The Sub-Officer in charge, let's call him Tony, is an amiable sort of guy who generally takes the easiest course when there's any work to be done.   He takes three men, one carrying a bucket of water, with him, leaving the fifth member of his crew with the fire engine.   Off they stride, into the wilds.   

The local trainee criminals have been busy, stealing and then burning the car.    It's the engine compartment that's on fire.    They manage to raise the bonnet and then throw the bucket of water onto the fire.    'Well,' says the Sub-Officer, 'That fire is not out.  We need more water.'  Turning to a crew member he says 'Go and get another bucket of water.'  

The man receiving the instruction is not impressed, does not want to walk all that way there and back to the fire engine and points out 'That fire's nearly out.   It's so nearly out I could pee on it to finish things off.'   Things started to go wrong when he said 'Watch.  I'll show you,' and promptly put his idea to work.   The immediate effect was a great burst of steam off the hot engine block that had him hopping around while everyone else laughed uproariously.  
Someone else got the extra bucket of water, the fire was dealt with and the crew went back to the station.

But our rebel fireman who thinks he can deal with fires in his own personal way is suffering.   The result of his exposure to the steam off the fire is a throbbing pain that is not going away.  Sub-Officer Tony is looking for a way out of this.   He can't go telling the bosses that he's let a man injure himself in such a stupid way.   He tells the guy to go off the run, reducing his crew to four men without any authorisation, and they agree he will stay on the station until morning.   Morning parade, watch dismissed and Phew! Tony thinks he got away with it.    But, there's been a leak to the papers and his cover is blown......
Final outcome: Tony amiably shambles into the Divisional Commander's office, gets the biggest rollicking ever, shambles amiably out and carries on much the same as before ' but nobody peed on any more fires on his watch!  
 
The Training Session ' 1

Elderly lady walking along with her shopping one afternoon is appalled to see three men on the canal bank heaving a body into the water. Not the sort of thing you see every day is it, and she's quite upset. As soon as she can, she calls the Police to let them know what she's seen. The Police Underwater Search Team is called to the spot. They search methodically, finding no bodies and nothing much else of interest, except for a Fire Service drill dummy.   It quickly becomes apparent that this was what the lady saw being thrown into the canal. There are letters and numbers marked on it. These mean little to the Police but do actually indicate the Fire Station to which the dummy belongs.

A familiar scenario follows: Divisional Commander sitting in his office; phone call from HQ; embarrassment because the Police are involved; Divisional Officer sent out to investigate. It turns out that the watch on duty that morning had indeed carried out a practice drill at the canal and had quite definitely used the drill dummy. It is then obvious that everyone thought someone else had brought it back to the station, whilst the dummy, having been skilfully rescued, had been left all alone on the canal bank, with a 'Hey you guys, what about me?' look on its face. 

Final outcome: Station Officer in full undress uniform attends the Divisional Commander's office to receive what is referred to as an 'admonishment', perhaps not literally slithering under the door as he leaves the office, but not far off it. You see, he has history.......

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