» Fire!

Fire! I bring you fire!
Hmm where shall I start, the burning bed, the napalm, exploding litter bins, that field or...


Ok, Im 9 or 10, 4th year junior and my mate and I nick some matches and cinnamon sticks from his mum, head over to the railway embankment. We try to smoke the sticks whilst sitting next to an upright dead tree, covered in dried out vines.

The cinnamon sticks were rubbish, but we decided to make a small fire where we were sitting, a few seconds later and it's spread to some of the dried vines down at the bottom of the tree. Uhoh i think, its a bit out of control, so we cover it in dirt, stamp about and look up to see the flames about to catch the rest of the vines. 2 seconds later and the whole tree is a 25ft tall pillar of flame. It was most impressive, and looked like the kind of thing God used to speak to people back in the Old Testament.

We run away to cries of anger as various blokes leg it out of their gardens and try and stop the fire. We ran down a stream and hid in some bushes. Eventually my mates dad calls us out, promising we wouldnt get in trouble,we are coaxed out, and sent home, although none of us got in real trouble due to us shitting our pants so much.

The main problem was the inaccessibility of the fire and the fact the pillar of flame was 10 ft from main branch line into liverpool street station, which had to be closed whilst they dealt with the fire.

So, to the quarter of a million commuters who were stranded for an hour way down the line in the London, due to the fire by the track in Brentwood. Sorry.
(Tue 8th Nov 2005, 14:35, More)