as not used in Glasgow Airport last SaturdayWhilst freely admitting to having no practical fire-fighting experience one thing has been niggling me since the attack on Glasgow Airport on Saturday.
Well, a shit load of things actually, but one thing in particular just came up in the course of a chat with a mate who watched the coverage from overseas.
Is it just me (and him) who thinks the firefighters on the scene acted like they couldn't be bothered to put the blaze out in much of a hurry?
.
30 comments:
Stef, just had to copy this artice, in its entirety, onto my blog. That Lego pic is irresistible.
My son always told me off for getting the "pugh, pugh" bit mixed up and for saying "custard, gribble and grubb"!
Good point though. With all the firefighting technology handy all they were capable of was a couple of standard hoses, casually dousing the flames with no particulat hurry to put them off.
After the event, I used remote viewing techniques, homing in on 10 Downing St and picked up this message a day before the incidents.
GWB: "Hello Gordon, welcome. Now can you give us a little bonfire to celebrate your accession, just to keep the folk on their toes?"
GB: "Yes, Mr President. Anything you say, Mr President. I'll do it at once!"
(Replaces receiver and redials)
GB: "Hello, is that Dame Liza Whatsername? MI5? Yes. Now listen, the Prez would like a little incident. Can you organize it?"
Dame E: "Why yes of course, Prime Minister. As a matter of fact we've just trained up a few Palestinians who are ready to go!"
GB: "Good, it'll give me a chance to convene COBRA and assert my authority. It's time to remind everyone who's dealing with the war of --sorry I mean 'on'-- terror!
"Oh, by the way, Dame Eliza, nothing too extravagant mind. We don't want folk killed and lefties demanding public enquiries and the like. Tony really did get carried away with 7/7."
Is it just me (and him) who thinks the firefighters on the scene acted like they couldn't be bothered to put the blaze out in much of a hurry?
Nope. I recall watching this live and thinking precisely the same thing.
Quite apart from the firefighters, the flaming source of the blaze didn't much look like it was destined to be put out, especially as it sort of gets put out on two separate occasions before flaring back up again.
Of course, both of these things have perfectly rational explanations, firstly that the firefighers were using the very latest firefighting techniques to deal with terrorist incidents that us plebs can't possibly fathom owing to its extreme complexity, and, second, that of course it wasn't meant to be put out because the whole thing was put there by dastardly terrorists who would want it to burn for as long as possible.
NonConspiro World: Starbucks and shopping bags. Lovely.
It would be abit of a tough break if on landing at Glasgow airport a very small fire broke out on a very small bit of the plane you were in as from what I can see the only fire fighting apparatus Glasgow airport have available are a couple of water hoses. The plane would just burn very slowly as these two water hoses were directed at surrounding planes...
(I am no expert, but) I think there is no way one could stop such a fire until the gas runs out. Everything is heated and gas is leaving the gas cylinder, so the gas will reignite. So the best strategy is to keep it from spreading any further.
Tony is correct.
Also, contrary to the hype on the BBC the fire-fighters knew that the blaze was of little threat.
Mind you, I'm surprised they even bothered to extinguish the terrorist at all. The IDF would have stopped for a fag first.
@tony/ wolfie
many moons ago I watched a fire fighting demo at an RAF base where a fuel based fire was blanketed in foam and put out in about 2 seconds
so, I with rory #2 on this one
And, sadly, it wasn't just the BBC which was hyping the threat of these bombs. On the Friday the Head of Anti (sic.) Terror at the Met was talking about potential 'carnage' and hundreds of casualties
@ rory w.
impressive RV skills - I'm jealous
and as those skills have so rightly revealed the War on, sorry, on Terror is tricky one to fight - requiring as it does that our leaders big up the daily risk we all face from being blown to pieces but, at the same time, not in such a way that they appear to be incompetent
scary but not too scary
Also interesting that the UK Arson prevention bureau states that:
If you believe it is safe, attempt to
put out the fire with a dry powder
or foam extinguisher. If the fire is in
the engine compartment, do not
open the bonnet but aim the dry
powder or foam through the radiator
grille or under the edge of the
bonnet. Use with caution and, if in
doubt, do not attempt to tackle
the fire
● Never use water on an engine fire - it
can short out wiring and spread
burning petrol with disastrous effect
Was that dry powder coming out of the hoses or foam? or is it just that it was cold in Glasgow that day.
& is the charging under the OSA of Met Police counter-terrorism civilian officer Thomas Lack-Lund associated in any way with these Iraq/al-Qaida (so we're told) connected events?
I've found a site where you can enrol for a RV course for £300. Not having that sum I just use my imagination. Probably not far off the truth!
Wouldn't it be good if we truth bloggers could all train in RV and then report on what the 'leaders' are up to?
On second thoughts, we've got a pretty fair idea what they're doing so why bother?
Stef's use of humour is a much better weapon!
"On the Friday the Head of Anti (sic.) Terror at the Met was talking about potential 'carnage' and hundreds of casualties "
He is very adept in using the Monbiot calculus (c) - Think of a number , make it bigger, if dead, make it even bigger, if only potentially dead, make even more bigger.
Rory I don't wish to be too critical but your RV is shite. Liz ...er ... Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller left MI5 at the end of April (to spend more time with her foundation garments she told me).
A chap called Jonathan Evans took over who used to help organise the state employed terrist in Northern Ireland for many years.
I can well believe he could have taken part in such a conversation but calling himself Liz and wearing a dress ... hmmm .... you may be right after all... some funny people swan about in the lounge bar of the Horse Guards Hotel ... sooooo convenient for their offices in the MOD.
Remembers old Joke, Why do Guardsmen where such long boots ... well sheep shaggers wear wellies and ...
... forgot to mention that what was missing in all the coverage so far available publicly (still / live) were those fresh faced young schoolboys they call policement these days with their Heckler Koch's who seem to be present everywhere in airports. Nor do they . Nor do they rush up fukll tilt whispering into their radios or squeeze 13 bullets into the head of the blazing driver or his mate just in time before his explosive weskit blows up and showers West Scotland with Dirty radioactive death rays, Anthrax, botulin, Bird Flu, Ricin, osmium tetroxide.
Incidentally a senior officer in a large Regional Fire Service assures us that it is almost impossible to blow up gas cylinders because they are overdesigned - simply because it is assumed they will be used and operated by dunces in dwellings, campsites, workshops.
Therefore the gas they contain in liquid form cannot produce sufficient when gasified to fracture it, the basal weld is so designed that if it does the base plate will go , thus minimising chance of shrapnel being projected sideways.
Hence the very casual way the burnt / singed cylinders were left on site by the jeep for hours as they posed no threat whatsoever to the SOCO team.
@Stef: Fuel is a liquid and can be covered with foam. Escaping and burning gas doesn't care much about what you do with it, unless you liquify it. And for that, you would need to massively cool it down or massively increase the pressure (and that, no firefighter on earth can do...).
Oh well, one more thing would be to blow it out with one of those airplane-engine-powered things they used to blow out the burning oil wells after the Gulf War. But then you would blow the poor little burning jeep across Glasgow airport...
@tony - it was a petrol not a gas based fire (see shutter's post above) and unlike an oil well fire it was not under pressure
it was a rubbish little fire that even left the tyres on the jeep intact - the firemen were either fucking around, knew the fire presented no threat or were told to go easy. None of these explanations are in accordance with the coverage given to the incident
@shutter - RV transcends both space and time and is not a precise science - no doubt Rory's experience included elements of an earlier incident
all things considered, his results are still a shit load more reliable than the more conventional intelligence sources used to draw us into a certain little war
Sorry, the RV Course as advertised is $300 not pounds. I am tempted to try it to improve my obviously inaccurate attempts which seem to get personalities mixed-up.
Perhaps the reason for this is not only because RV transcends time & space but depends on thought forms as much as specific events.
In that sense the thought form would be almost identical shared by Dame Eliza, her successor and the rest of the government goons ;^)
stef.
When I first heard of the "London car bums" the conspirator in me suspeced Bushs Brain at work, to get Lockerbie out of the headlines. I stated at the time, {damn, cant find out where I wrote it} that I wouldn't be surprized if another Al-Kaida sequel would come out soon afterwards. And guess who pops up? why Mr Militant himself. ( Zawahri ). 5th July, a few days later.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070704/
tpl-uk-qaeda-video-43a8d4f.html
Maybe coincidence, but I'm bored with multiple, contantly reoccuring coincidences by now.
As for the fire being put out unusually slowly, maybe, but I think the assessed the situation as not needing to have the fire put out so rapidly.
You are right about certian extinguishers. They can kill flames within seconds. And if there is no oxygen then the heat would not cause it to re-ignite, but, if there gas pressure differentials involved, then completely cutting off O2 would be difficult.
Just a comment but I did wonder whether the bombs failing to go off - yet again - might me for the same reasons that sometimes the IRA's didn't - cops/MI5 etc had tampered with them beforehand. But then as they apparently parked illegally maybe they were just incompetent.
Does anyone around here study semiotics?
"Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in 'reading' them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most 'realistic' signs are not what they appear to be. By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of 'denaturalizing' signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit."
I think if remote viewing worked, the good people in the pornographic industries would have made it available by now
Perhaps it has something do with the way you tell 'em.
Interesting (!) this story of the cops spraying CS gas - flammable? - on the blazing man.
As you can see here, the gas cylinders are torched at the top. And the video of the fire looks not like a petrol fire to me. And I would say that means the gas cylinders were acting like oversized camping lights... But then again, I'm not an expert.
@tony
If that was the case and the firemen were confident that the fire represented a small, containable threat then the Head of UK Anti-Terror was lying the previous day when he claimed that the car bombs could have caused hundred of casualties
Someone is bullshitting here
(see also my following post on a BBC story that claimed that foam was used before water was poured on the car - do you see any in the video?)
Yes, I think the the people talking to the press were exaggerating the situation (as in lying). People dependent on funds do that (see climate debate).
I just quickly searched for gas fire videos and found these two: Highly directional flames (same as in Glasgow, in my opinion) and until the gas is turned of (or runs out) there is not much sense in putting out a gas fire.
Another one, then I shut up :-)
Does anyone around here study semiotics?
Was the Pope a member of the Hitler Youth?
being part of the watch that attended the incident at glasgow airport i think u lot should either shut up or put up when it comes to putting fires out.
the crews knew on arrival that there were gas cylinders involved.
so dont approach the fire
hit it with the first readly available of medium (water from hosereels) till a better medium is available (foam).
this is what happend. end result 1 burnt oot car and 1 airport with very little damage considering the possibilities.
even the bomb squad wouldn't hav tried to put the fire out knowing that there was a bomb in the car but the firefighters who first attended did.
so moan away u so call firefighting experts try and give some credit to the guys who had the bottle to stand and fight the fire.
First off
I can't speak for anyone else but I wouldn't dream of casting aspersions on the bravery or commitment of any individual firemen. Absolutely no way
Nor do I pretend to have expertise when it comes to putting out serious fires
And I'll take you at your word that you were on that watch
But are you actually saying that an appliance only fitted with water was the first appliance on the scene? Where were the airport crew?
On top of that the account given by this guy...
http://tinyurl.com/3xs3cc
doesn't seem to square with what you are saying happened
but that's all by the by
What pisses me off is not what the fire crews did or did not do that day. Like I said I don't doubt the bravery of our firemen for a second
What does piss me off is the media coverage given to that fire. That short clip of a blazing car and a couple of water hoses was looped time after time as part of the hysterical media coverage of that event.
It wasn't me that made the firefighting operation look shit on television, that's down to the news editors
stef,
the airport fs do not turn out to terminal incidents as of 2003 or there abouts as they used to hav a appliance that covered the terminal but done away with it to save money. looks like that was a bad idea. so the local authority now hav full responsibility to cover the airport.
as for appliances having only water ... no they dont but it takes time to set up foam equipment. so the crew fought the fire with water which can be done. (petrol can be extinguished with a high presure watrer spray)
then foam equipment was used to kill the flames. the use of the reels did enought to halt the spread and allow the other crews to get the equip set up.
as for the tv film coverage being looped that aint the brigades fault. seen it before loads of times when a story breaks they loop it till they get move tape in.
finally ta for agreeing the guys did do their best given the dificult situation they faced considering they werent told the full story of what they were going to.
forgot to say
at the end of the day it was only a car fire (we get loads of them) against a building. ok there was a bomb on board. but it turned out to be a fiasco as per usual given there were certain agency's/people looking to further their own goals.
Post a Comment