Came across a smallish fire in the woods yesterday, about 10m odd so too big for me to put out myself.

Called 999, cycled to the nearest road, waited for the engine, guided the chaps to the spot on foot.

They seemed wholly unimpressed, felt like I was a pain in the arse rather than the good citizen I thought I was trying to be….

Should I have just left it to burn itself out?

To top it off I got a bloody puncture about 10minutes later, first of the year.

Karma!!!

You did the right thing.

you did the right thing fella 😉 think if it spread and wiped out someones house??

forest fires can be fatal to animals too so think you may have saved a bunny!!

Good work!!

You were right .They were winkers ,if it had spread it could have caused lots of damage and cost a fortune to stop

Probably disturbed their snooker/burgers/doughnuts back at the station…

I thought they all did window cleaning on their days off?

You did right, DT78. There are hosepipe bans looming because of the lack of rainfall recently. Some areas are tinder dry, it could have developed into a major incident.

Shame about the aftermath, but you should have stopped to help Muddydwarf on your way to the nearest road! 🙂

Probably was just before England kicked off or time for their afternoon nap.

I'd say always call the FB. Should be up to them whether or not they come out – after all they're not doing it for your benefit.

Not going to rise to the bait.

DT78, you would've been my first suspect for fire raising. 😉

Big fires start as small fires.

Hehe bruneep you know I'm not serious. It would be tea and cake time.

hell yes. Well done.

Forest fires are an esential part of the forest lifecycle, it clears away old dead wood, and allows new growth. I expect the FB knew this and it had nothing to do with playing snooker and watching re-runs of baywatch.

Yes that'll be why the FB has flown my mate to South Africa and Spain to learn how to fight forest and wild fires, so they can just leave them.

The FB have flown him to south africa to learn about forest fires during the world cup, not a snooker fan then I take it.

No he's not but he's also not been out when the World Cup was on.

Forest fires are an esential part of the forest lifecycle, it clears away old dead wood, and allows new growth

How important is that in this country tho? I mean where most forest is managed anyway, and dead wood rots away in a few years in our dampness.

Forest fires are an esential part of the forest lifecycle, it clears away old dead wood, and allows new growth.

In hotter climes where the plant and animal life has evolved to work with that, yes. Not in the UK. I don't think it's the end of the world, but I think it should be avoided, and that's why there's fire-beating facilities in the forest around my house and the fire brigade are out fairly often. Plus it's a minor danger to animals, walkers, mountain bikers etc who may be in the area, which isn't such a problem in remote open vast wildernesses where they just leave it to burn.

Hi DT78. You aren't by any chance in the Farnborough area? The army trainees are a good source of naked flames. Last summer I had to stamp out a growing fire in the scrub, alongside still-glowing fag ends. – 100M down the lane slinking away was the furtive line of squaddies, – just off their break.
I suspect the army may be responsible for quite a number of the fires round these parts.

Well i'm biting well and truly i'll have a go at explaining why DT78 did the right thing.

Ignoring the fact that they seemed unimpressed (i would suspect that as they reguarly deal with small fires in certain areas of Hampshire that the 3rd or 4th small fire of the day will leave them a little unimpressed, especially as an attendance will mean they are then unavailable for further (potentiall more serious) calls – but as secondary fires fall into the fire services remit, control obviously deemed it a suitable call to turn a crew onto.

Moving onto why it's neccessary

Most older mature forests are at the stage where the soil is a very dry mixture of wood mulch, once a fire gets into this it can travel unseen deeply under the surface of the ground to re appear elsewhere. This can neccesitate digging huge trenches to expose and extinguish it, add in the fact that the woods are currently very dry and the potential for rapid fire spread is there (i know i've had more than a few), these fires could if left to develop (not managed like when the FC deal with them) will draw in substancial resources as well as potentially developing into serious fires, these fires can travel at tree top height at speeds that it isn't possible to out run or re locate equipment or vehicles. Which obviously has outcomes.

As for the little digs at what fire fighters get up to, maybe you should knock on your local station door and just have a chat about what we really get up too. Might waken a few of you up!

Rant over

**must make sarcastic comments more obvious in future**

**must make sarcastic comments more obvious in future**

😆 😳

We found an abandoned camp fire (local kids I imagine) that had started to spread a bit in our local woods a few years ago. We rang the reception of the local fire station directly just for a little advice on how we should best extinguish it. They said they'd send a fire engine round straight away despite us insisting it wasn't needed.

Five minutes later two fire engines arrive and a load of blokes rush into woods. Realising it was nothing more than an abandoned campfire they all return back to fire engines looking at us like something they trod in.

Which was nice.

We rang the reception of the local fire station directly just for a little advice on how we should best extinguish it.

Soil?

Two fire engines was the official word of the FB. So clearly not.

Glad people think I did the right thing, quite a few sections are scorched there so it seems regularish at the moment

Your probably right might have been the 3rd or 4th callout, I don't think it was little scrots as it was not in the usual area they hangout they don't seem to penetrate too far from the housing estates.

I was quite interested that the FB were using some sort of weird backpack / spray thing

(was in lordswood southampton btw_

known as knapsack pumps and are a system brought in from Australia, basically a bag full of water with a bike pump attatched by a hose,bit more portable than a truck, anything bigger would be landrovers.

Know lordswood very well, served at redbridge for nearly 7 years, what amazes me is how deep joyriders manage to drive cars into lordswood before torching them, you still see some of the shells as it's probably too difficult to recover them, also you'll see the not so rare moped plant, found to be sprouting all over lordswood.

As for the little digs at what fire fighters get up to, maybe you should knock on your local station door and just have a chat about what we really get up too. Might waken a few of you up!

Why would I do that when I ask my best mate or see what they're up to when I work alongside them? By they're own admission they're the quitest of the Emergency Services that's what the digs are for.

Sorry for resurrection of a thread been away all weekend.

By they're own admission they're the quitest of the Emergency Services

because ninja turtle boy, we have to go out into the communities to educate the public in the dangers of fires within the home and workplace the dangers of RTC's etc. prevention is better than cure. Probably doing ourselves out of a job 😐

What would you rather it was?

Don't see the ambo's out teaching first aid to stop people turning up at A&E

Sorry for resurrection of a thread

No you're not, any chance for a dig at the firefighters. eh?

Just a wee bit jealous about something methinks!

drac as said above . your right amb/police are busier on emergency calls but we do lots of other stuff too. id rather be busy doing rtc/fire calls but thats not the way its going we are educating to prevent rather than just responding and playing snooker 😉

Don't see the ambo's out teaching first aid to stop people turning up at A&E

Really? Funny I do that and there's at least 30 PR events each month within our service for various education and safety awareness.

No you're not, any chance for a dig at the firefighters. eh?

Nope not all, as I say I was away at the weekend. If you think I'm jealous your a mile off I love what I do and can't think what I would be jealous of.

Yup your community work is great think it was a cracking idea and does help educate but you see we have to do that as additional can't be done in normal work time. Yes I know it's the same for some Fire Stations but hot spotting is often done when your on stand by is it not?

Your role is changing hugely there's PFI stations opening around here and with that they want more out of them. The beds have gone by all accounts which was a shock for some I bet.

Christ these firefighters are tetchy, a few little jokes and they start crying, good job they don't work in IT, the constant piss taking and ritual humiliation would drive them to suicide.

I suspect the army may be responsible for quite a number of the fires round these parts.

then again it is their land… 🙂

re op, probably best to call FB, better safe than sorry.

msp i think its cos we keep hearing all these tales of how it used to be and wish it still was .

a few jars in the bar , a rip roaring house fire or two , few more ales then bed up in time for the window round 😉

damn right im jealous lol

Yeah firestarter that's it I mean it's be a good 6 months