Burnin' down the house

A couple of years ago we got dispatched to standby at a shop fire in a busy shopping strip. We usually get called because there is the possibility that the men and women of the fire services might get injured while dealing with the fire, but occasionally someone else is affected by smoke or flames. This particular fire was quite substantial and well alight when crews got there. If I remember correctly somebody had made good on their threat to burn the place to the ground over a property dispute. We were asked to standby a little way down the street and out front of a small coffee shop. Sadly we had to sit there for almost 2 hours, drinking cappucinos, eating fresh sandwiches and watching the show. Terrible stuff ;)

Recently my learned colleague and I were dispatched to standby at a house fire in a suburban street. We couldn't see much smoke as we drove towards the scene so we thought it might be a false alarm. When we arrived the house was still smoldering (fire savvy people may know the right terminology), the flames were out but smoke and steam was still pouring out the roof, windows and doors. We could clearly see the place was destroyed. We found the fire commander on scene and let him know we were there if he needed us. He told us the crews were putting on their BA's to go in and search the house for any occupants and that once that was done we could clear and head back to branch. Sadly there were no coffee shops in sight this time.

While we waited around we were told by the police on scene that the owner of the house had been contacted and told that his house had burnt down. Apparently he was rather nonplussed and was declining to come home from work to check it out. I don't know about you, but I'd probably want to get home and have a look. Fortunately nobody was hurt and we were eventually released from the scene. I went home and checked the batteries in my smoke detectors.