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Fire at 'privately held carriage', Carnforth

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mikeg

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There's been reports of a fire at a privately held railway carriage, my brother saw them going, but oddly enough saw no smoke and several unmarked police cars. For some reason he thinks that the story in the local rag 'The Visitor' doesn't match up with what he saw: The Visitor Article

On arrival at the scene in Jesson Way just after 8.30am firefighters found the fire involved a detached train carriage on private land.
They used four breathing apparatus, two hose reels and a ventilation unit to extinguish the fire. Crews are currently still on scene but the number of fire engines has been reduced to two, whilst crews dampen down any remaining hot spots.

Would four breathing apparatus and multiple fire engines be required for a single carriage, given that one fire engine can often do a house?

Please note, this is more a fact finding mission and should not be seen as an attempt to speculate.
 
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stuartl

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There's been reports of a fire at a privately held railway carriage, my brother saw them going, but oddly enough saw no smoke and several unmarked police cars. For some reason he thinks that the story in the local rag 'The Visitor' doesn't match up with what he saw: The Visitor Article



Would four breathing apparatus and multiple fire engines be required for a single carriage, given that one fire engine can often do a house?

Please note, this is more a fact finding mission and should not be seen as an attempt to speculate.
Do the fire service have a minimum turnout for set locations. Isn't Jesson way the base for West coast ? If so their plan might consider this an industrial site that needed a high initial turnout.
 

Belperpete

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I thought they normally sent out two engines to each fire, taking different routes if they can.
 

bazzoh

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Different predetermined attendances for different incidents but if there was an issue with getting water, a well developed fire or a need for more firefighters, additional pumps would attend (with their own onboard water supply)
 

mikeg

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Ah thank you for the replies, interesting, never knew this is how these things worked.
 

John Webb

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Different predetermined attendances for different incidents but if there was an issue with getting water, a well developed fire or a need for more firefighters, additional pumps would attend (with their own onboard water supply)
If BA (Breathing Apparatus) is used, it is also usual to have two crews attend as a minimum so that the BA wearers from one crew can be backed up by the second crew, and if a protracted incident where crews need to be rotated, more appliances would be called in. (BA sets usually have a designed duration of 30-45 minutes, and a BA crew once out will need to take a break due to the high work stress levels and the need to service their sets before they can return to active fire-fighting.)
 

randyrippley

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Different predetermined attendances for different incidents but if there was an issue with getting water, a well developed fire or a need for more firefighters, additional pumps would attend (with their own onboard water supply)

Looks like water and manpower was both an issue.
Both Lancaster crews were on a shout, so the volunteers from Silverdale were called out to go on standby at Lancaster. They were then called back to Carnforth to back up the Carnforth volunteers on the railway job. They then found there was a water supply issue so a pump was sent from Blackpool and another borrowed from Kendal (Cumbria brigade) to resolve this.
Whats disturbing is there should have been pumps closer at Bolton-le-Sands (volunteers) and Morecambe (full time). If they weren't available things must have been thinly stretched
 

bazzoh

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If BA (Breathing Apparatus) is used, it is also usual to have two crews attend as a minimum so that the BA wearers from one crew can be backed up by the second crew, and if a protracted incident where crews need to be rotated, more appliances would be called in. (BA sets usually have a designed duration of 30-45 minutes, and a BA crew once out will need to take a break due to the high work stress levels and the need to service their sets before they can return to active fire-fighting.)
Absolutely- the PDA is usually adjusted to take this into account (if the incident type is known) though the OIC can of course request further assets if required and I’m sure you know the harder the work or the stress levels, the less the duration of the BA set. I’m not sure what BA sets are on lancs or Cumbria so not sure about the duration times available
 

43096

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Absolutely- the PDA is usually adjusted to take this into account (if the incident type is known) though the OIC can of course request further assets if required and I’m sure you know the harder the work or the stress levels, the less the duration of the BA set. I’m not sure what BA sets are on lancs or Cumbria so not sure about the duration times available
In line with forum rules, please can you explain PDA and OIC?
 

RuralRambler

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Looks like water and manpower was both an issue.
Both Lancaster crews were on a shout, so the volunteers from Silverdale were called out to go on standby at Lancaster. They were then called back to Carnforth to back up the Carnforth volunteers on the railway job. They then found there was a water supply issue so a pump was sent from Blackpool and another borrowed from Kendal (Cumbria brigade) to resolve this.
Whats disturbing is there should have been pumps closer at Bolton-le-Sands (volunteers) and Morecambe (full time). If they weren't available things must have been thinly stretched

Bad flooding in the area overnight. An area of Lancaster was flooded with dozens of people needing evacuating (4 fire engines). There were also other smaller flooding jobs too. The Blackpool engine had been sent to "stand by" at Lancaster when the Silverdale one (on stand by there) had to go back to Carnforth for the coach fire. It's not always the nearest stations sent to stand by duties.
 

John Webb

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Ah, so a few acronyms transfer across from the Police. Interesting!
A lot of towns and cities for many years had fire brigades run by the police. These were terminated during WW2 by the formation of the National Fire Service (NFS), and the Fire Services Act of 1947 specifically stopped Local Authorities (LAs) from reforming them as the NFS was disbanded and fire service provision handed back to such LAs.
 

bazzoh

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A lot of towns and cities for many years had fire brigades run by the police. These were terminated during WW2 by the formation of the National Fire Service (NFS), and the Fire Services Act of 1947 specifically stopped Local Authorities (LAs) from reforming them as the NFS was disbanded and fire service provision handed back to such LAs.
And now some Fire & Rescue Services are run by Police and Crime Commissioner’s! One big circle!
 

randyrippley

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Bad flooding in the area overnight. An area of Lancaster was flooded with dozens of people needing evacuating (4 fire engines). There were also other smaller flooding jobs too. The Blackpool engine had been sent to "stand by" at Lancaster when the Silverdale one (on stand by there) had to go back to Carnforth for the coach fire. It's not always the nearest stations sent to stand by duties.

Yeah that makes sense, there was an horrendous rain storm that morning, generated a couple of inches of standing water in minutes on the M6 around J33
 

ajs1981

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I thought they normally sent out two engines to each fire, taking different routes if they can.

I don't know for certain but I think that's for motorway incidents. I think, but again I'm not sure, it's because people often give the wrong direction.
 

stuartl

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Could be that they are sent from different fire stations so would have to go by diferent routes.
 

Lockwood

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I don't know for certain but I think that's for motorway incidents. I think, but again I'm not sure, it's because people often give the wrong direction.
Can confirm. A motorway will have an appliance sent in each direction.

If the PDA for a domestic/commercial fire is 2 Pump and there are 2 pumps available at a station, both of those are likely to be used (if one is whole time and the other is retained, the recommended response may be a pump from there and one from the next nearest if the activation time means that the other one would get there sooner)
 

Mcr Warrior

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Where the affected carriage was located, if the fire at Carnforth had spread, might a whole rake of rolling stock potentially have gone up in smoke?
 

alexl92

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Can someone more knowlegable that me say whether, based on the photos, the coach will be restorable?
 

Bedpan

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Probably no more knowlegable than you, but I would hope so.if Mikeg's brother didn't see any smoke yet BA was required, then the smoke was contained within the carriage and would have served to have helped starve the fire of oxygen. I'm sure that if significant damage was caused to the exterior of the coach, it would have been shown in the photographs published by the Fire Brigade.
 

alexl92

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I've just thought - as a mk2 Air Con, once the oxygen inside the coach was burned I presume there wouldn't be a free flow of fresh air through vents/windows to feed the fire?
 

John Webb

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I've just thought - as a mk2 Air Con, once the oxygen inside the coach was burned I presume there wouldn't be a free flow of fresh air through vents/windows to feed the fire?
Once the oxygen level falls below 12% combustion cannot continue, so a well-sealed coach might well get close to 'self-extinguishing'! Depends what caught light first and how close to any window glass it was - if not too close and windows remained sealed then OK. The one interior photo I saw on the Fire Service website showed significant high-level damage to the interior, low-level damage on the left in a single seat but the two seats on the right looked almost untouched. It would be difficult to make any further analysis due to lack of knowledge of the ignition source and its location.
 
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