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A fireman’s worst nightmare

The services of the Fire and Rescue Service are next in demand to that of the police. But the agency is often haunted by malfunctioning equipment.

On Wednesday night, a fire tender arrived at Bastion Street, Fort Kochi, to douse a fire on top of a tree. A fire-fighter rolled out the hose and took position on the road, aiming the hose at the tree top. A minute passed, but no sign of water gushing out of the hose. Despite repeated attempts by the personnel, the hose (or is it the water?) played truant for many more minutes, refusing to pump out water. By then, quite a huge crowd had assembled around the scene, most of them foreign tourists. Many of them captured the sequence of events on camera phones.

Luckily, it began to drizzle and people hoped that the rain would put out the fire. But then, over a quarter-of-an-hour after the fire tender arrived, water began to spurt out of the hose and the fire was put out.

John L. Paul

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