Down the hatch - Civic visitors watch as Fireman Holden practises going through a manhole in a mock rescue bid.

Burnley Fire Brigade has been under the microscope this week as the fire station and the men who staff it underwent their annual inspection. Her Majesty's Inspector of Fire Brigades, Mr C. M. Bidgood, spent Wednesday and Thursday, 24th and 25th November 1971, at the station, being joined on Thursday by the Mayor of Burnley, Ald. Desmond Parkinson, and members of the town council's Public Works Committee. On Wednesday, Mr Bidgood inspected the force's records and examined the day-to-day running of the station. In the evening he saw the brigade put out an imaginary fire at Livingstone Mill on Elm Street, the base of the Corporation Works Department. Firemen used three pumps, an emergency tender, a turntable ladder and a water tender in a full scale operation to put out the "blaze".

Yesterday the party saw just what the force could do when faced by mock-ups of some of the other situations that occur in everyday life. After inspecting personnel the party saw the rescue of a man trapped underground in a sewer, and then at the other extreme a man rescued from the top of the station tower, using a turntable ladder and line. There was a big audience made up of boys from St Theodore's RC School next door to the station to see firemen using compressed air power tools to cut free a body trapped in the tangled metal of a crashed car. Lunch followed at the town hall. Chief Fire Office, Mr L. Thomas, said the committee and Mr Bidgood were impressed with what they had seen.