FIRE-FIGHTING AT WIGRAM

Press, Volume C, Issue 29565, 14 July 1961, Page 18

FIRE-FIGHTING AT WIGRAM

Drill In Heavy Rain

Showing a high degree ot efficiency. firemen at the Royal New Zealand Air Force station at Wigram early yesterday morning took less than 10 minutes to rescue a “pilot” from the smoke-shrouded fuselage of a Harvard and put out a blaze nearby in one of the station's most realistic fire drills. Carried out in heavy rain and bitter cold, the entire exercise went off without a hitch. At 8.54 a.m. the alerted crash tenders raced to the scene of the “accident" in the north-east corner of the airfield. At 94 a.m. the firemen were packing up their gear after having put out the fire. The purpose of the exercise was to test the new fire system for faults and timing.

Waste oil and fuel poured over old tyres provided the spectacular blaze, which was fired by a Verey pistol, just down-wind from the aircraft fuselage. At the sounding of the crash alarm at 854 a.m. the first crash rescue vehicle raced straight across the airfield towards the billowing smoke. It was followed a minute later by the first tender, which within seconds was pumping foam on the blaze at the rate of 1000 gallons a minute. Two more fire tenders and an ambulance joined the two vehicles almost immediately Technical wing staff stood by with a crane to lift the fuselage if necessary. Then six minutes after the initial alarm, foam and fog hoses had blanketed the flames. Firemen packed up their gea- and drove back to their section to clean up and get readv again and within 15 minutes the station had aettled down to another day of duty.