Up in smoke

I am slightly addicted to watching Twitter tonight. This is because you can see side by side the good and bad from Bonfire Night. I have to confess that I am not a lover of bonfires and fireworks, and this is something that comes from my childhood. Now that I have a horse I worry about him during the evening of bangs and whizzes. I have good reason to worry I have known horses that have suffered stress related injuries and illnesses linked to Bonfire Night.

So I decided to ignore the noise outside and start to focus on what was happening on social media. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service are running a log throughout the night of the incidents they are called to. It includes lots of small and malicious fires that are being started as well as the large scale fires.

For every tweet that is being posted by people enjoying fireworks at home or out at organised displays there are comments about problems being caused. People can be quite selfish on 5th November. They don’t think about the implications of their actions on others whether that is messing about with fireworks or putting bonfires far too close to homes.

An example of the tweets includes:

@manchesterfire

21.03 – Car fire on Orient Street in Salford. Reports of people putting fireworks into a car which is now on fire. #treacle2016

 They have also said between 3pm and 9pm they received 260 calls. I am sure this must be stretching the crews that they have on duty. With more than 70 calls in just one hour I feel for all those working tonight.

I just hope that by highlighting the problems and issues the firefighters are facing on Bonfire Night it might make people think a bit more carefully about their behaviour. The difficulty is that once tonight has gone it will be a year before we face this again and I am sure the consequences of actions tonight will have been forgotten.