COMIC FIRE BRIGADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 113, 16 May 1927, Page 9

COMIC FIRE BRIGADE.

EFFICIENCY TEST THAT MADE A TOWN LAUGH. The people of Penart, near Cardiff, are laughing over a test carried out by the local fire brigade and its apparatus. A large crowd witnessed what proved to be an amusing spectacle. In a top floor bedroom of an orphanace containing 300 boy B a small fire was deliberately started, but went out twice before the brigade arrived. At 7.31 the alarm was given; at 742 two men pushing a hose-cart, arrived; while at 7.51 the steam engine with two men reached the building. When the water was turned on, the hose burst in three places. At 8.20 the chairman of the Fire Brigade Committee ordered the big escape, which is ybeeled by hand. The deputy captain of the brigade refused to comply with the order. Eventually twelve men attempted to take the escape to the orphanage. They were not able to proceed more than a few hundred yards, however, as it became unmanageable on a hill. The brigade's engine is 21 years old. The boiler has been condemned as liable to blow up any minute when in use. Recently the council rejected, on the ground of cost, a proposal to purchase a motor fire engine and escape combined,