[AusNOG] Exchange Fire - Parklea NSW

[Matt Palmer]

On Tue, May 09, 2017 at 10:45:10AM +1000, Robert Hudson wrote:
> Certainly that it was a larger fire than "small fire" would indicate.  It
> appears to have burned for around 7 hours...

Actively burning for seven hours is a *very* big fire.  I wouldn't have
thought there'd be enough combustible material in an exchange to go for
seven hours, but they're not my natural habitat, so <shrug>.

Even if it was "firefighters on site for seven hours" (which is usually no
more than one to two hours of active firefighting, followed by five to six
hours of slowly picking through the rubble to find any remaining hotspots
and overhauling the site), that would be... still pretty big, and an
extremely bad day for everyone involved.

I attended a fire at a school once, that took out a wing of classrooms
(about 3-4, IIRC), and I don't think we were on scene for as long as seven
hours.  Middle of the night, though, so it felt like a week.

- Matt
(Volunteer firefighter)