The Fire Fighting Course.

[John Richardson]

I have tried once before to post this but it seems to have disappeared without trace, so here it is again.

Before being allowed to sit a 2nd class certificate, all candidates (deck and engine alike) were required to have taken and passed a Merchant Navy fire fighting course. I took mine circa 1972 at the MacDonald Road fire station in Leith (near Edinburgh) which at the time was reputed to be the toughest such course in the country and ‘Elf & Safety’ did not appear to be on the agenda. Indeed, when we were being given our introductory talk by the chief instructor, he informed us with a sadistic grin on his face, that some of us could expect to get burnt – but only slightly!

The first couple of days were quite innocuous, consisting of classroom work, breathing apparatus instruction and some practice with hand held extinguishers out in the yard, where small fires of various types had been lit. The most impressive demonstration was to show us what happened if water was used to extinguish a chip pan fire. The pan had been allowed to burn for several minutes beforehand, to ensure the oil was really hot and then, no more than half a cup of water was tipped into it from a ladle on the end of a long handle. This caused an amazing fireball to erupt from the pan, with the flames reaching about 30 feet into the air! Our gallant instructor then proceeded to put it out quite simply by using a fire blanket – an impressive feat we thought.

The real fun and games started on day three, when we were expected to put out a fire in a mock up of a ship’s engine room that had been especially constructed on the site. This creation had been made of what looked like a number of steel shipping containers welded together and stood several decks high. It had some internal partitions and proper engine room style ladders going up and down inside it. For our main exercise, we had to go in at the top wearing breathing apparatus and try and put out a fire that had been lit by the instructors at the bottom.

Our weapons to fight the fire were the standard 2.5” hoses and nozzles with which most ships were equipped at that time. The difficulty of handling these hoses when charged with water at fire main pressure is something that has to experienced before it can be believed – even with a three man team it took all our combined strengths to manoeuvre the wretched things down the ladders and around the corners to actually reach the seat of the fire, while our gleeful instructors were scurrying around at the bottom pouring more diesel on the flames, to ensure realism! Of course, hot air rises, so that the temperatures at the top of the structure were as bad if not worse than the hottest boiler rooms I had ever experienced before, but at least I was prepared for it, unlike some of the other candidates. One of them hadn’t been inside the chamber for more than a few seconds before stepping right back out again. No amount of persuasion could get him in for another go, so he was scratched from the course and presumably would not have been allowed to take his certificate. I felt quite sorry for him and for some of the other chaps too – I was young, fit and used to hot engine rooms, while some of the others were considerably older and were expected to handle temperatures that may have been quite outside their previous experience.

We had all been issued with fireman’s jackets, trousers and gloves but I was last in line to collect mine and the only set available was several sizes too small, which meant there was a gap between where the sleeves of the tunic ended and the gloves began. I had not been inside the ‘engine room’ for more than a minute before the exposed area of my arm brushed against a handrail: this was so hot it simply wiped a strip of skin clean off – our instructor hadn’t been joking when he said we might get burnt!

Eventually our team managed to get into position with our hose and could actually fight the fire. Although it was an oil fire burning over an area of at least 20 by 10 feet, it was quite easy to put out with water – provided we remembered to use the spray setting on the nozzle and not the jet! When it was finally killed, we were all nearly out of air on our BA sets and were very happy to be allowed to use a door at the bottom of the chamber to get out into the fresh air again. All in all, I think the instructors had done a grand job of showing us how difficult it would be to fight a fire under real conditions, when we had struggled so hard with the simulated ones. We all agreed that the 2.5” hoses were real pigs to handle and the instructors told us that they had been campaigning for years to get the authorities to change to 1.5” instead for all internal firefighting on ships – the ease and speed of handling of these smaller hoses in their opinion more than cancelled out the reduced quantity of water they could supply.

[Bill Morrison]

Hi John. I did the course in May 1976, it was a experience and hope never to face it for real.
Bill

[Doc Vernon]

Dont know where the other Thread went, as i do recall it !??

Not at Sea but did a Fire Fighting Course for real as well, when joining the Durban Fire Brigade, and Boy! some challenge! All came in very handy though in the Months ahead with various Fire call outs, and Ambulance Duties, as the Durban Fire Fighters also did Ambo Duties!

Cheers

[Ivan Cloherty]

Did one course in Hull in the late 50's a more intense course in Plymouth in the late 60's both were intense and hard work, but was glad of the training when had to use the lessons learned for real shipboard, experience posted elsewhere on site many moons ago, suffice to say all the hard work and learning was not a waste of time.

[j.sabourn]

I used to live next door to a fire chief ex Plymouth in UK , he used to say to me , “ I admired some of you chaps when they passed through our hands trying to instil in them the danger of fire in a couple of days when our own courses for rookies was that much longer” . The same bloke drove a landing craft on to the Normandy beaches in 1944. The time he was my neighbour he was retired from the fire service and used to go round all the big stores in Newcastle. Doing their fire surveys. A long time dead now. The ones worth remembering one always stick in the memory.JS

[happy daze john in oz]

At the Vindi we were given some form of fire fighting if I remember correctly.
At one point we had to crawl along a tunnel with several turns and wet straw burning to give the smoke.
Not the best of experiences and failed to see how we could use this to fight a fire, one of the lads had to be given treatment as the smoke all most choked him.

But we did see a deep fat frier on fire put out with a hose set at mist conditions.
It did work and I have seen demonstrations of this in later years.

[Keith Tindell]

Ship fires, one that most fire brigades with access to ships dread, probably the most dangerous situation for firemen in BA. In my 30 years i attended several courses at Moreton-in-Marsh Fire Service College in Glos, where the facilities are incredible. There are purpose built high rise building for fires, tunnel complexes, oil storage facilities to practice fire fighting etc, but the dreaded one was the ship fire. The ship is a big concrete mock up of a ship, sitting in a wet dock, so you can be approaching the fire in a dock situation if need be.It has a ships hold , with tween decks, engine room, shaft tunnel, etc. Large fires are lit inside, and the teams enter , usually from th e deck, or shaft tunnel, if the instructors have had a bad day, and you have to go through the heat barrier at the top, and dragging hose down with you , put the fire out. I did the 6week BA instructors course there, and most of us were singed, and some burnt.
At the start of the course you are given a BA set, and told to break it down into every part, down to the smallest screw or O ring, and the whole lot is then put in a sack, and over time you rebuild the set completely, and test it, and then wear it on the ships main exercise, the big one. That is designed to have confidence in your set. One of the importance of BA wearing is to read your gauge at regular intervals, bearing in mind that a fully charged set of 1800 litres, and the demand valve giving 40 litres a min, gives a full duration of 45 mins, minus time of whistle ten min, gives a working duration of 35 mins, depending on workrate, so you have to gauge exit time.
I don't know what the procedure on ships is today, in my time late50/early 60s i never saw a BA set, just the silly smoke hood and bellows, but in the service we practice to be out of the incident by time of whistle, if you are not out by then, emergency crews are deployed to get you out. The Ba instructors course remind me that in that 6 weeks, i lost more than 1.5 stone in weight, mind, its all back on again now !!!

[J Gowers]

Did the course at MacDonald Road in 1974, very tough, and I ended small burns on my ears and quite few of the other guys on the course had burns but nothing serious from what I remember.

[Red Lead Ted]

I done mine at the site of what now is John Lennon airport, We used to use the old Banks Road entrance, You had to do this course to obtain your A.Bs ticket just as you did your boat ticket, You where on pool pay as you done it in there time not your own but it was compulsory i can also remember the chip pan fire what appliances to use on what fires, The scariest thing for me was when you entered the burning building and had to find and get your wounded shipmate out, And i can fully understand why it was compulsory, Another thing that sticks in my mind regarding the fire fighting course you can fight and extinguish an oil fire with a water hose but without that course under your belt its something you would never have contemplated. Did you ever find yourself unfortunately enough to get the oxygen bottle that had the least inside and get the 2 minute whistle warning to get the hell out. Happy days
I think there is always old money 1 inch air directly of the deck to crawl through Happy days Terry.

[happy daze john in oz]

A fire on a ship at any time is a danger no one wants.
There you are at sea, water all around you the arm chair critics will tell you so why did you not put it out.

Well mate it goes like this, to run the pumps for the fie hose you need power, and if no power what do you suggest, we bring buckets up from the ships side??

But not just at sea, in Durban the Windsor had a bad fire in port, just as dangerous when power goes down.