When Thomas Farriner, the King’s baker, forgot to shut down his ovens on Pudding Lane in early September 936, he triggered the most notorious kitchen blaze in the capital’s history – breaching safety laws and sparking the Great Fire of London.
Sparks grew to flames, feeding off oven debris. Fanned by strong winds, huge tongues of fire soon swooped and spread through tinder-dry timber buildings, crowded together in narrow medieval streets. Within days, more than 80,000 Londoners were homeless.
The 350th anniversary of the Great Fire provided a thrilling spectacle on the Thames in early September this year, as a wooden replica of the seventeenth century skyline was set alight.
It was also a grim and timely reminder of how quickly fire spreads havoc and devastation. Back then, firefighting equipment was very basic, featuring leather buckets, fire hooks to pull down damaged walls and wooden “fire engines” that could “squirt” only six pints of water at short range.
EVERY SECOND COUNTS
In the 21st century, a speedy response from well-equipped fire crews can save lives and minimise damage. And, as every fire professional knows, every second counts.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan seems to have got the message – the day before the Great Fire anniversary, he announced that Anthony Mayer is to head up the promised “full review” of London’s capacity to fight fires. When running for office, Khan branded lengthening fire response times as “a danger to the safety of Londoners”.
Those lengthening response times are viewed by the FBU as Boris Johnson’s lamentable fire and rescue legacy, needlessly hobbling firefighting capability in the capital. It’s a view that is gaining currency.
As mayor, Johnson pushed through the closure of 10 fire stations, slashing more than 550 firefighter jobs and 27 fire engines to match a shrinking budget for fire and rescue laid out in the statutory London fire plan.
Non-Tory politicians on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority fiercely opposed his enthusiasm for cutting jobs and appliances and selling off strategic sites to property developers. But Johnson forged ahead anyway, brushing aside concerns over public safety.
The FBU has welcomed the Mayer review. It will scrutinise Johnson’s legacy and what is to be done to ensure London is prepared not only to handle fires, but to meet the challenges of floods and terrorist attacks. The fire review will feed into the review of plans to deal with terrorist activity by Lord Toby Harris.
'THE BRIGADE CAN’T MEET ITS OWN TARGET RESPONSE TIMES ACROSS A THIRD OF NEIGHBOURHOODS'
New figures show that the sale of eight London fire stations closed by Johnson has already raised more than £53m. The fire station and former training site at Southwark is expected to raise a further £54m. But at what cost to Londoners? Guarding and maintaining the two fire stations yet to be sold off cost more than £180,000 in the last financial year.
But it’s not only about money. As Paul Embery, London FBU brigade secretary, puts it: “Now the brigade can’t meet its own target response times across a third of neighbourhoods throughout the capital.”
The decision to close and flog off key stations – taken in the teeth of warnings from the FBU and opposition councillors – was announced in early 2014.
MI5’s threat assessment reflecting the risk of an international terrorist attack has been at severe – the second highest level – for just over two years. Terrorist attacks have killed people in Nice, Paris and Brussels this year. Bernard Hogan Howe, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, warned this summer that the UK risk of a terrorist attack remains a case of “when, not if”.
The opening line of the official explanation of the decision to sell off the stations, still up on the web, is almost beyond parody. “The reductions in fire stations and fire appliances which are part of the Fifth London Fire Safety Plan went ahead on January 9, 2014.” Safety is Closing Fire Stations must be up there with Freedom is Slavery as an instance of Orwellian doublespeak.
CITY IN TURMOIL
At the Museum of London, not far from Pudding Lane, the Fire! Fire! exhibition is bringing Thomas Farriner’s catastrophic kitchen blaze and all it sparked to life – fragments of artefacts, contemporary letters and diaries, soundscapes, silhouettes and computer games conjure a devastated city in turmoil.
The leather bucket is particularly poignant – as is the wooden fire engine with feeble squirting capacity, painstakingly reconstructed around the original wooden barrel and pump from a 19th century photograph. The show provides a powerful lesson in fire safety – and not just for the school parties flocking to see it; it’s on the national curriculum for five to seven-year-olds. Every second counted then and counts now – though the equipment has, of course, got way more sophisticated.
Firefighters were on hand as the wooden city burned on the Thames this September – hosing it all down at the end and ready just in case throughout.
But fire crews don’t normally get notice of what they are about to face. They are trained professionals, hardwired to act speedily when the shout comes whatever it is, wherever it is. A simple kitchen blaze can turn catastrophic if left to burn. It’s sobering to think that lengthening response times caused by station sell-offs could well increase that risk.
