Fire Brigading

Blandshire Constabulary has a tried and tested method of responding to any of the resource-intensive crises that can descend on it on a given day, such as terrorist strike, animal rights demonstration, Chief Constable visit, or snowfall.

When the fourth listed crisis occurs, an air-call goes out to inform everyone that they should immediately sit on their arses in the police station and only leave if one of the first three above crises occurs. Calls from the public will only be attended if the inspector considers that the likelihood of the caller dying is greater than the likelihood of the attending officer aquaplaning into a crash barrier en route. As police officers are more than capable of aquaplaning into crash barriers on days when it is dry and sunny, it is therefore likely that on snowy days we will not leave the police station at all. Anyone breaking into cars, houses, beating up their partners or running amok with a variety of weapons should feel free to continue.



Let's face it, we're not the brightest and best drivers whether it's been snowing or not.









This method of policing is known as Fire Brigade Policing, because the fire brigade generally do not drive around hoping to catch a fire in the process of breaking out, but wait at their station until they are called. There are other things the fire brigade do which the police do NOT adopt, no matter how snowy it is, for example:

• Blacklist persistent hoax callers and refuse to attend, or fine them for wasting our time.
• Carry around equipment which is actually capable of smashing through doors when needed.
• Do not apologise or pay when their officers in good faith and in response to a call completely wreck an entire house.
• Refuse to cancel whilst en route to a call, no matter how obvious it is they are not needed (Blandshire is, however, introducing this rule by stealth).

Whatever one says about the fire brigade, there is something impressive and reassuring about four big engines waking up the neighbourhood as they arrive on scene to rescue a child from a jammed lift. There's very little impressive about the entire strength of Blandmore's response teams putting their feet up in the nick, watching the snow fall and wondering how soon their should start defrosting their cars to go home.

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