Post by Wheee on Jan 8, 2007 20:49:44 GMT -5
Courtney Stafford Period 5 English
The Great London Fire of 17/16Iforgot
The great fire in London was a horrible tragedy, but it could have been much better
handled by the residents of that fair city. The three key points I will discuss in this essay are as follows: Participation and interest in putting it out, fire handling techniques that weren't known at that time, and current technology that makes handling fire much easier. These will be discussed more in detail in the following prefixes.
The first and most important point is obviously that, to put out a fire, you need to... You know, try to put out the fire. No one seemed to want to shoulder this task, and most people were content to stand around in towers watching it, or just jumping in the bay to hide. There were no bucket brigades described in this writing, no firemen, no martials. The author himself seemed sleepily uninterested in the fact that the capitol of his nation was being swallowed in flames, and someone he comes upon professes, spently I might add, that no one wants to listen to him and help with the inferno. Even with the focus of a martyr it's difficult to fight a large scale fire, taking large scale teamwork and swiftness, so it's not hard to imagine that a town full of lazybones was going to fry.
Second, proper technique and protocol was nigh nonexistent back in those good old days, for any kind of process. The idea of science was just starting to appear, and there was simply very little besides common sense and lore, if that, in the way of firefighting knowledge. It wasn't known then, that you were supposed to aim at the center of the fire; It wasn't known that drenching the area around a fire would stop it from spreading; It was a mystery, that it was a bad idea to build homes that close together in the first place, thus making it very easy for the fire to thrive and grow greater; And obviously, some moron didn't know that turning the oven off when it is unattended is a good idea. People probably didn't even understand what fire was, other than that it was hot and tended to burninate their thatched roof cottages. Without this knowledge, failure was a sadly predictable inevitability, as was the pile of ashes that would bear the name 'London'.
Third, and least the fault of those within the city, a decided lack of technology existed in the way of firefighting. There were no fire hydrants, or even probably irrigation ditches that would make water easy to come by. There were no hydro-pumps or flame retardant chemicals, no devices for firing sweet smothering blankets of potassium acetate, no flying machines loaded with weird orange powder, and there was definitely no sign of even a single fire-eating hovercraft powered by the light bouncing off Jupiter. We're still working on that one in this day and age, even. At least I am. Digressing, there just weren't a lot of tools back then for putting out fires. Their entire arsenal consisted probably primarily of the river they lived on and various containers for carrying it. And those probably were all leaky or something.
In conclusion, and in all faucets of life, success is based on skills, tools, and foremost, effort. And as obviously shown, all three of these were in short supply on that very bad day in London. As the old saying goes, 'London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down'. It goes on to state, 'London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady'. These words should be held in heart as you approach the future and it's myriad fires. Thank you, and goodnight. Go read something else now.
The Great London Fire of 17/16Iforgot
The great fire in London was a horrible tragedy, but it could have been much better
handled by the residents of that fair city. The three key points I will discuss in this essay are as follows: Participation and interest in putting it out, fire handling techniques that weren't known at that time, and current technology that makes handling fire much easier. These will be discussed more in detail in the following prefixes.
The first and most important point is obviously that, to put out a fire, you need to... You know, try to put out the fire. No one seemed to want to shoulder this task, and most people were content to stand around in towers watching it, or just jumping in the bay to hide. There were no bucket brigades described in this writing, no firemen, no martials. The author himself seemed sleepily uninterested in the fact that the capitol of his nation was being swallowed in flames, and someone he comes upon professes, spently I might add, that no one wants to listen to him and help with the inferno. Even with the focus of a martyr it's difficult to fight a large scale fire, taking large scale teamwork and swiftness, so it's not hard to imagine that a town full of lazybones was going to fry.
Second, proper technique and protocol was nigh nonexistent back in those good old days, for any kind of process. The idea of science was just starting to appear, and there was simply very little besides common sense and lore, if that, in the way of firefighting knowledge. It wasn't known then, that you were supposed to aim at the center of the fire; It wasn't known that drenching the area around a fire would stop it from spreading; It was a mystery, that it was a bad idea to build homes that close together in the first place, thus making it very easy for the fire to thrive and grow greater; And obviously, some moron didn't know that turning the oven off when it is unattended is a good idea. People probably didn't even understand what fire was, other than that it was hot and tended to burninate their thatched roof cottages. Without this knowledge, failure was a sadly predictable inevitability, as was the pile of ashes that would bear the name 'London'.
Third, and least the fault of those within the city, a decided lack of technology existed in the way of firefighting. There were no fire hydrants, or even probably irrigation ditches that would make water easy to come by. There were no hydro-pumps or flame retardant chemicals, no devices for firing sweet smothering blankets of potassium acetate, no flying machines loaded with weird orange powder, and there was definitely no sign of even a single fire-eating hovercraft powered by the light bouncing off Jupiter. We're still working on that one in this day and age, even. At least I am. Digressing, there just weren't a lot of tools back then for putting out fires. Their entire arsenal consisted probably primarily of the river they lived on and various containers for carrying it. And those probably were all leaky or something.
In conclusion, and in all faucets of life, success is based on skills, tools, and foremost, effort. And as obviously shown, all three of these were in short supply on that very bad day in London. As the old saying goes, 'London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down'. It goes on to state, 'London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady'. These words should be held in heart as you approach the future and it's myriad fires. Thank you, and goodnight. Go read something else now.