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Major fire at waste depot on Shakespeare Road, Brixton, Friday 8th Sept 2023

What the fuck is burning in there? What burns for this long even when firefighters are fighting the fire?

Have they found the gates of hell?
 
CH1 said:
This blockade has obviously been in place for at least the last 15 hours - maybe longer.
Buses P4, 35,45 and 345 cut off from Brixton to Loughborough Junction.
Yet apparently no traffic management and no information on TFL website or affected bus stops.
View attachment 391044View attachment 391049View attachment 391045View attachment 391046View attachment 391048
Click to expand...
So what's going on? I heard somewhere that the FB get the water pressure in the mains turned up when they're fighting a big fire, but that risks causing the watermains to burst (which seems to have happened on Railton Road). Did they then close Coldharbour Lane so that they could fill up the water tanks in the fire engines from the mains there?

They dont' hold a lot of water - no wonder it's taking a long while to extinguish
 
The water mains in Brixton have been staggering along on a state of disrepair for decades now.

Years ago I spoke with someone at the water board about the Brixton Hill problem, with the water main springing leaks all over the place over and over again. There was a leak on the pavement near Raleigh Gardens that went on for years. So long that the whole kerb became a little garden. He said since they can’t shut down the main and replace it (which would be the best long term solution) they just do patchwork fixes as and when the leaks occur. He also said the entire area was bound to become more problematic. That’s probably true of a lot of places, with the ancient systems under highly dependant areas.

it seems to me that the end of the world will happen like in Brazil or other dystopian stories, not with a bang but a series of whimpers. Things failing and just not getting fixed, till the whole thing just… crumbles back to its component part.

The inevitability of entropy. Or something.

For want of a nightwatch the fire took hold, for want of repair the brigade had no water etc

And capitalism obvs.
 
CH1 said:
I've done pictures of the situation at Loughbrough Junction just now (3.30 pm Sunday afternoon), which Ed has moved into a new Shakespeare Rd fire thread Major fire at waste depot on Shakespeare Road, Brixton, Friday 8th Sept 2023
This was clearly exactly what I saw in the distance a few minutes past midnight last night.
Click to expand...
I was wrong in my assumption in my previous post and they were running the fire hose pipes all the way from Coldharbour lane. and the road was therefore blocked.
 
story said:
The water mains in Brixton have been staggering along on a state of disrepair for decades now.

Years ago I spoke with someone at the water board about the Brixton Hill problem, with the water main springing leaks all over the place over and over again. There was a leak on the pavement near Raleigh Gardens that went on for years. So long that the whole kerb became a little garden. He said since they can’t shut down the main and replace it (which would be the best long term solution) they just do patchwork fixes as and when the leaks occur. He also said the entire area was bound to become more problematic. That’s probably true of a lot of places, with the ancient systems under highly dependant areas.

it seems to me that the end of the world will happen like in Brazil or other dystopian stories, not with a bang but a series of whimpers. Things failing and just not getting fixed, till the whole thing just… crumbles back to its component part.

The inevitability of entropy. Or something.

For want of a nightwatch the fire took hold, for want of repair the brigade had no water etc

And capitalism obvs.
Click to expand...
There has been a project to replace all the ancient pipes. This suggests they were 20% of the way through London wide
www.thameswater.co.uk

Replacing century-old water pipes in London | Newsroom | Thames Water

More than 2km of ageing cast iron Edwardian water pipes are being replaced in a £1.5 million investment by Thames Water in south London
www.thameswater.co.uk www.thameswater.co.uk

I can't remember how far they got but didn't all the Oval to Brixton get done in the last few years?
 
thebackrow said:
There has been a project to replace all the ancient pipes. This suggests they were 20% of the way through London wide
www.thameswater.co.uk

Replacing century-old water pipes in London | Newsroom | Thames Water

More than 2km of ageing cast iron Edwardian water pipes are being replaced in a £1.5 million investment by Thames Water in south London
www.thameswater.co.uk www.thameswater.co.uk

I can't remember how far they got but didn't all the Oval to Brixton get done in the last few years?
Click to expand...

I know they put that huge drain bore in, from under Rush Common, to deal with the Effra run off problem. At least flooding is less of a problem these days, for the time being anyway til climate change makes Brixton Town a swamp again.
 
how on earth has it been smoking and smouldering for this long ? During that heat as well, must be horrible for everyone. Also what’s in the ‘respite center’ oxygen tanks and biscuits? Grim.
 
wemakeyousoundb said:
I was wrong in my assumption in my previous post and they were running the fire hose pipes all the way from Coldharbour lane. and the road was therefore blocked.
Click to expand...
No - they were filling fire engines at the junction of Shaespeare Rd & Coldharbour Lane - and the pipes ran across the road. I guess it would be tempting fate to allow heavy traffic to drive over the high pressure water pipes.
 
At some point (Friday?) there was definitely a big hose connected to the mains in CHL and going off up Shakespeare Rd.
 
teuchter said:
At some point (Friday?) there was definitely a big hose connected to the mains in CHL and going off up Shakespeare Rd.
Click to expand...
You could be right - I only became aware of the road block on my return from the Proms on Saturday night & was not inclined to investigate past midnight.
I was knackered from 5 hours standing and as far as I knew the flashing lights could have been police responding to a traffic crash - which happens quite often on that bend.
So it wasn't until Sunday afternoon I realised it was all multiple high pressure hoses filling fire engines on the other side of the street.
Thinking about it I'm sure that WAS a fire engine straddling straddling Coldharbour Lane at midnight 8/9 Sept.

They would need a hell of a long hose to get from SW9 8SE to the fire - half a mile according to Google maps.
www.google.com

SW9 8SE to 84 Work Way

www.google.com www.google.com
 
Lambeth fire chief told me that the only way to get it out was to use plant equipment to drag stuff out/demolish the building. Now with those drone photos, I understand why. The roof has collapsed in but you can only pore water though the holes were presumably the windows were. This hasn’t been particularly successful previously. Also they ran out of water at some point on Saturday.
 
I’m starting to think the local WhatsApp group is losing the plot. So far we’ve had discussions about taking class action for “injuries”, getting the environment agency involved - so far the response to these well meaning but slightly over anxious people has been a polite fuck off and now we’ve moved on to taking soil samples for contamination as “I’ve a garden full of veg and a couple of chickens”. I’m assuming said chickens are about to be slaughtered just in case
 
Not a Vet said:
Lambeth fire chief told me that the only way to get it out was to use plant equipment to drag stuff out/demolish the building. Now with those drone photos, I understand why. The roof has collapsed in but you can only pore water though the holes were presumably the windows were. This hasn’t been particularly successful previously. Also they ran out of water at some point on Saturday.
Click to expand...
there was no windows, the holes you can see in the pictures I posted were angle grinded out, the only drone I noticed was sometime on friday afternoon.
e2a: I aso hear some angle grinding that must have taken place on the mayall road facing end of he building as they were also hosing from that side.
 
CH1 said:
You could be right - I only became aware of the road block on my return from the Proms on Saturday night & was not inclined to investigate past midnight.
I was knackered from 5 hours standing and as far as I knew the flashing lights could have been police responding to a traffic crash - which happens quite often on that bend.
So it wasn't until Sunday afternoon I realised it was all multiple high pressure hoses filling fire engines on the other side of the street.
Thinking about it I'm sure that WAS a fire engine straddling straddling Coldharbour Lane at midnight 8/9 Sept.

They would need a hell of a long hose to get from SW9 8SE to the fire - half a mile according to Google maps.
www.google.com

SW9 8SE to 84 Work Way

www.google.com www.google.com
Click to expand...
your picture shows 4 pipes connected to the truck, I would think 2 in 2 out and some sort of pump in the truck
 
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