Suppressing a fire in Lancashire

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service in the UK posted this series of 10 to 20 second videos of how they dealt with a recent vegetation fire. They responded to “several deliberate fires”, but apparently the largest was a “10 pump” fire.

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

6 thoughts on “Suppressing a fire in Lancashire”

  1. David,

    Pumps does refer to Fire Appliances. Kevin, there is a burning code which offers guidance to land owners on the management of their land using controlled burning however this finished in April. The ground is very wet at the moment following an unseasonal cold snap a week or so ago which has helped prevent the fires burning into the peat causing longer term problems. We have issues with the loss of nesting birds and the land on fire is water catchment for the local water authority. The leaf blowers ( Air Powered Extinguishers) have been introduced over the last 18 months and are fantastic for Molinia fires but that tends to be their limit as anything involving woody material has too much fire loading for the extinguishers to be as effective. We also use the technique of blowing back onto burnt land to prevent spot fires. We haven’t introduced offensive techniques and the use of drip torches but we are working on that.

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  2. whats a 10 pump fire mean?..and whats with the leaf blower?…seemed to work..but wouldn’t the embers below just reignite?…they don’t do a lot of vegetation fires??..

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    1. David Kauffman, I use to live in Lancashire. They burn off the moors once in a while to reinigurate the grazing and to control ticks. Also I would imagine the wetness of the area doesn’t allow for too much fierce burning that I ever saw, but it is almost always overcast and drizzling if not raining.

      The references to various pumps appears to be degrees of emergency and fire intensity as they may go from four pump fires to 30 pump fires. The wiki article is helpful here

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Fire_Brigade

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      1. Kevin,Thank you for your response and the article.i have yet to read it,but i was thinking it may have been in reference to back pumps,but maybe the “pumps” mean engines eh?..

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      2. Thanks Kevin. The way I understand the Wikipedia article, “pumps” is short for “pumpers”, AKA fire appliances. So, a “10-pump fire” would have 10 pumpers, or fire engines.

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    2. I know that leaf blowers aren’t used everywhere for fire suppression, but all of my IA engines have at least one leaf blower on it. We’ll put one guy with a leaf blower and another with a torch and fight quite a bit of fire with it. Obviously we have to go and dig the lines down to bare soil,but it will slow things up enough in hardwood litter to allow additional resources to arrive.

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