As a boy growing up in south London, I remember being really excited in the run up to Guy Fawkes night. The construction of a huge bonfire on a communal green near my home was something my friends and I took great pride in. And then on the night itself, families from all over the housing estate would gather to witness the fiery spectacle. I remember us kids, faces glowing in the heat of the blaze against a backdrop of inexpensive fireworks that never really lived up to expectation. I loved it nonetheless.
Now, 40 years on, those memories remain fond but now feel somewhat naïve. I’ve spent the past quarter century as a firefighter serving the same community that I lived in as a child but bonfire night has taken on a different meaning for me. It’s fair to say that the 5 November is not as busy now as it was 25 years ago. Back then special mobilising arrangements were regularly adopted by the London Fire Brigade on bonfire night in order to deal with the volume of calls. But while things might not be as quite as hectic nowadays, fireworks have become bigger, more powerful and more dangerous and as a service we’re dealing with incidents with fewer fire engines and personnel.
A couple of years ago I remember standing in the wreckage of a bedroom having just extinguished a fire that was started by an errant firework that found its way through an open window. Caught up in the net curtain, it continued to burn, eventually setting fire to the whole room. The blaze rendered the flat uninhabitable and left the family homeless until well into the following year. Thankfully, the young girl that was sat on her bed at the time the firework hit managed to escape and raise the alarm. I wonder what might have happened had the net curtain not impeded the firework’s trajectory.
And this year, a good two weeks away from bonfire night, an unpleasant individual traveling in a van through the underpass at Clapham Junction thought it would be funny to aim a firework at a mother and two children that were walking through. The resulting explosion had mid-afternoon shoppers running for cover while the young family fought to prevent what may have been life threatening injuries. It was a truly horrific act.
The unsocial use of fireworks as weapons is not limited to just that incident; just this week there were news reports of youths in east London attacking cyclists with fireworks. The London Fire Brigade recommend that people should only attend official bonfire night events and to follow the Firework Code – a guide on how to stay safe while using fireworks. These are fine, responsible guidelines that will be followed by the majority of people. However, they’ll be scoffed at by the type of immature, anti-social fools who believe it is acceptable to shoot explosives at women and children.
The potential danger of fireworks is not fully understood by some until it’s in their face. That danger was brought home sixteen years ago in Holland when the Enschede fireworks factory exploded killing 22 people, including four firefighters, and injuring over 900. Despite the lessons learned from that disaster and the relatively robust laws around fireworks in the UK, we experienced our own fireworks factory explosion in Southampton in May. It took 13 fire appliances and 70 firefighters all morning to extinguish that fire.
My partner loves fireworks. In fact, she has insisted we go to a locally organised event this coming weekend. She picks up on my reticence and reservations about attending and thinks it’s simply me being miserable. I don’t discuss the operational side of my job a great deal at home and prefer not to relate stories of the suffering of others. But if it helps prevent just one injury, and explains my reticence, I would urge anyone to consider the case of Donna Stringer.
Donna, the resident of a care home in Barking was almost killed when a rocket was fired from a car through the window of her bedroom a year ago. She suffered horrific injuries including severe burns to her throat, arms, hands and chest. She suffered months of painful operations and had skin grafted onto her throat. For months could only be fed by a tube. The two individuals responsible for that attack pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court last week and await sentencing.
As I said, I’ll go to the firework display with my partner as I’m not working this November 5. But I’ll be glad when it’s over.
