Windscreen / Dirty Messages

[Dyson]

Haha no ! A simply “alight” will be sufficient. No need for over dramatisation. I can’t read it without putting in a strong Norfolk farmers twang in my mind 🤩 ( no offence Norfolk I love you ) 

P.S 

% works well, 25 50 75 or 100.  I assume you use this in you structured messages ? 

[Becile]

I’ve Always used well alight...for going like a b##st##d , 

[Percy]

18 hours ago, Dyson said:

Haha no ! A simply “alight” will be sufficient. No need for over dramatisation. I can’t read it without putting in a strong Norfolk farmers twang in my mind 🤩 ( no offence Norfolk I love you ) 

P.S 

% works well, 25 50 75 or 100.  I assume you use this in you structured messages ? 

No - I’ve always thought % were daft on Informative's.

Maybe on Stops, but as part of a dynamic job? There would be a queue of slimy lawyers wanting to know why your first one was 25% if your furthers had a higher %.

Also, maybe ‘Well Alight’ is a County’ism but I’ve yet to find a better descriptor that crews on their way can picture in their heads if it’s going ‘well’ 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤪 as part of a snap shot message.

[Dyson]

It just makes me cringe 😂🤩 I’m sorry, I can’t help it ! 

but the good news is we agree that first impression messages are generally a good thing. I would say that I personally only ever do them when they are operationally necessary. If we arrive and it’s what it says on the tip sheet, and I think the initial PDA will be sufficient, I won’t bother.  
 

[Messyshaw]

Its not something we ever did in the LFB during my time, probably as with over 200 appliances and umpteen officers (before mobile phones) sharing three already overloaded radio channels, it would have been impractical 

I quite like the idea though. The nearest we got to it was before data terminals, when you had to book in verbally, sometimes you could detect a sense of urgency/panic in the radio operators voice inferring it was a decent job 🙂

[Becile]

999 eye may progress help this  as it can send images from the fireground from the caller to the control room and back to selected recipients (phones ) got them on all appliances and officers now picture paints a thousand words- you decide which it is alight/well alight/% etc etc. Still doesn't stop the officer sending a message that will hopefully validate any operational decision based on what is infront of him and DRA., (regardless of its description and others subsequent interpretation)

[Dyson]

I went to a job recently, on the way there the control room told us they’d put (us )2 further appliances on as they had seen ‘images’ of the incident. I’m not sure if this is 999 eye ? Or they simply asked them to send a video,  but it was a good call to be fair. It subsequently became persons reported and not the type with a good outcome unfortunately. 

[Becile]

To be fair sometimes social media is ahead of us...Twitter and face book via a simple internet search of “fire at xxx” sometimes  gives an image . Cameras everywhere...might as well use them to our advantage.

[Noddy]

999 eye is brilliant we’ve had it for a long while.

Cant say I’ve ever said well alight in a message…. small fire or severe fire is what I hear over the airwaves today 

[Dyson]

I’d be shocked and very disappointed if you had, Noddy 😂🙃

[Rory-495]

I'm not sure if London have adopted 999 eye, I've heard rumours but never coke across it myself

I have however heard a control op tell us "multiple calls to this incident, additional appliances mobilised. Hmm... sounds like a bad one this"

We weren't sure if they were talking to someone else and forgot to stop transmitting! And it was a nothing job!

In that instance, a quick message on arrival would have clarified exactly what was going on and would potentially have relaxed a lot of twitchy people monitoring remotely 

[Noddy]

16 hours ago, Dyson said:

I’d be shocked and very disappointed if you had, Noddy 😂🙃

If I had mate I’d have included well extinguished in the stop 😂

[TandA]

On 20/06/2021 at 21:22, Dyson said:

Haha no ! A simply “alight” will be sufficient. No need for over dramatisation. I can’t read it without putting in a strong Norfolk farmers twang in my mind

Sorry, no carrot crunching, no straw in mouth, no all pervading smell of pig shit, but you will often hear “Well Alight” in best “estuary Essex” down here.  Smoke logged, heavily smoke logged, alight, well alight, going like the b’locks is the well established hierarchy in this neck of the woods.

[Kinmel]

There has been some discussion about "well alight" This lorry carrying aerosols is definitely well alight.

[Becile]

Yep..id put that firmly in the well alight category....lol

[Steve]

On 10/07/2021 at 22:32, TandA said:

Sorry, no carrot crunching, no straw in mouth, no all pervading smell of pig shit, but you will often hear “Well Alight” in best “estuary Essex” down here.  Smoke logged, heavily smoke logged, alight, well alight, going like the b’locks is the well established hierarchy in this neck of the woods.

We had an (angry) Stn O come into LFB in 1991 from Essex, he sent 'well alight' on his fist night. I was a Ff on the R/W Poplar at the time, his watch,  W/W were still rolling around when we came on the following morning and he was even angrier. 

[Carl]

We still use "Well Alight" daily.

[Steve]

On 06/02/2021 at 00:00, Jet said:

I can picture the foam emanating from Steve's mouth if he ever heard a 'make pumps three' message 😂

To be honest, I was all for it and often used to make up in odd numbers, just to be different, but also to request what was needed. I've been on a four as a Stn O, needed an aerial and sent MP5 aerial required, to get an additional pump to take care of resourcing the requirements of the aerial. The first time I did it, the ADO pulled me at a debrief, the SDO running the debrief, struck off the negative point as he said my thinking was valid and the ADO, who made it 6, was thinking like a sheep. I remember the smug smile creeping across my face. 

[OscarTango]

Kent being the twin brother of Essex "Well Alight" is standard here. I put it back only the night before last. 

[TandA]

Don’t tell Steve, but if it’s common in Kent and Essex then, just like Covid, it will spread into London before too long.  Standards aren’t what they were.

[Keith]

"Well Alight" used with us.

[Becile]

Yep..well alight a regular message..as Oscar Tango I also used it a few nights ago in my informative.

maybe a poll (mods) would help show our non believers it is a thing ...lol, it doesn’t look like it’s a rural /met or north /south .

9 hours ago, TandA said:

Don’t tell Steve, but if it’s common in Kent and Essex then, just like Covid, it will spread into London before too long.  Standards aren’t what they were.

In those immortal words “They don’t like it up em”

[Steve]

As a matter of fact, I think it's a reasonable message, to describe the difference between something that is on fire and something that is going through the roof, but then where do you draw the line when trying to explain a building with no visible fire and productive smoke being forced from every aperture? Maybe simplicity was the key?

The old LFB was a law unto itself. Long before my time, things had to be done differently, often I assume on the whim of one person or a mindset. Some were good, you know my opinion on dutch rolled hose, which we obviously took from Europe. There are other mysteries, why were we still using hook ladders and escape ladders well over a decade after others stopped using them? Operational reasons? They held their own well through the 70's if you look at historical accounts, I can't speak from experience, although Messy can. Some thing around standards, they were good in my book, cap or helmet when out, helmet on at all times in the trucks before my time I'm led to believe, everyone rigged the same etc. Messages were another thing that the firm held an absolute vice like grip on in terms of quality, structure and content. Why??? That has changed, but only 15 years or so ago I remember arguing on a phone with a DO as an ADO when a message had been sent where just one word was deemed wrong, yet a DO felt it right to ring me to moan about it. Really????

Anyway, they and I are all history now, that LFB no longer exists, by and large a real shame, but in some areas, like I describe above a good thing. 

[TandA]

Off topic, but messages being correct is one of the things I do try to drum into my crew.  I think it makes life easier if the format follows our procedures to the letter and I can concentrate fully on the content rather than having to put half of my processing power in to deciphering what the sender is trying to say because the format isn’t what it should be. I am hearing more and more mangled messages lately.

[HB2016]

@Percy Why do you use 'Oscar offensive' I've noticed Dorset & Wilts do this too? We just use 'Oscar' or 'Delta' as if you're going to say Offensive or Defensive then why would you need the phonetic? (and vice versa) for example... 'Incident mode oscar, saveable property'. Just curious to know if there is something I don't know!