Firefighters on the Hills, The Water Gunner, (E)

            File: 2021001-0012

Somewhere around the Worcestershire Beacon, Malvern Hills, Great Malvern, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Date unknown, likely to be in the Summer, circa 1985 to circa 1995.
 
About this photograph.

This is a British firefighter on an emergency call-out to fight a wildfire on the Malvern Hills.

Only one side of a single hill was on fire, it was not an extreme inferno, but simply a very large patch of fire coving almost half of one side of the slope, and the weather was hot, but not a heatwave.

The Country of Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade were on a call-out to go up the hills, and attempt to fight the fire. They had managed to get the fire under control, while many people were still hiking and walking all over the hills.

Here, you see the firefighter wearing the late 20th century uniform long before they were replaced with a more modern ones.

Notice that in one of the photos, you can see the helmet did not have a protector visor, because in the old days, helmet designs were very much like that, before the more modern with visors started.

The photo shows one of the firefighters pouring water, using a water gun, on the side of a hill, from a footpath, while people were still going for a walk, as seen in the background.

The photographs were taken with a Minolta X-700 35mm SLR film camera, possibly with a 28-200mm zoom lens, and either a Kodak or Agfa colour film.

I am unable to remember the date, let alone the year, as I have lost my notes, but I know it had to be sometime between 1985 to 1995, during the summer. This is because 1985 is the year I got my X-700 and 1996 is the year I moved to a new home (explained below).
 
About the event.

At that time, I lived with my parent in a top floor apartment, with a view to the Worcestershire Beacon, thus if there was a fire on the hills, I would see smoke. This is when I decided to grab my camera and head up to the hills to try some photojournalism-style photography.

In those days, health and safety rules were a bit lax, there were people still going for walks up and down the hills even when the firefighters were trying to get the fire under control.

There weren’t any police officers trying to get people off the hills, and the civilians were simply going for a walk, this was why I was able to freely move around and try to take some shots of the firefighters.

The colour shots were sent off for developing and printing, as I only develop and print black and white myself.

About 30 years later, the prints were scanned to the computer, using a Brother A3 multi-function printer/copier/scanner/fax machine, so I could upload them to my Flickr Photostream.
 
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Taken in: UK / England / Malvern Hills District / West Malvern (show map)

Taken on: January 26, 2022

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Firefighters

Malvern Hills

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