Good buddy and Madang- Ples Bilong Mi  reader Rich Jones shot me an email this morning with photos of the Burns Philp fire in Port Moresby.

This from Rich Jones:

We were sitting on the balcony drinking wine and saw a huge plume of smoke from downtown. Like any good PNGer we immediately raced towards the disaster and saw the final moments of the famous yet flammable Burns Philip building, once home of the excellent Tribal Den nightclub and currently under, um, renovation. There were vast and knowledgeable crowds who were remarkably close to the action and a few brave firemen trying to save Westpac with some very leaky hoses.

Check out Jenn’s chairs in the heart of the fire.

It was quite a communal affair. Well ordered and quite solemn at times.

Rich sent some shots of the fire along with the email. The Sunday night fire, which rated a short blurb in the Post Courier’s online rag, was apparently spectacular and a great crowd pleaser:

The building was under renovation at the time of the fire. You can plainly see the scaffolding.

Here it is getting well and truly under way:

I’m not familiar with Port Moresby (and I can’t say that I’m a big fan either), so I don’t know what we’re looking at in this shot:

A lot of money burning up, I’d say. Rich explained to me on the phone that the firemen did manage to save the bank next to the blazing building, but doesn’t give huge credit for that, since the wind was blowing the other direction quite strongly.

Here is a shot showing the mystery chairs, which were, by all accounts, amazingly fire resistant. Sounds like a handy thing to save your home in case someone spontaneously combusts while napping in front of the tellie:

I recall several huge fires here in Madang. The first that I remember, strangely enough, was the Burns Philp warehouse fire way back when. Then Binnen Bakery burned down, followed soon by the Lutheran Shipping Fibreglass shop. That one was very spectacular. There were 200 litre drums popping like bombs and rocketing many tens of metres into the air trailing orange flames. A terrific show which we could easily watch from our house.

Probably the most well remembered fire in Madang is the old Chemcare shop. Here’s our old buddy Greg O’Keeffe looking a little bewildered as his shop burns to the ground behind him.

The Fire Service makes an easy target, since the equipment is laughable, and the record of success rather thin. I can’t recall a single fire in Madang at which the Fire Service made much impression on the fire. Maybe it’s just my poor memory.

Lest we pick on the poor Fire Service fellows, let’s remember that they are about as effective as any other government operation. Let’s not single them out for abuse. There’s enough to go around to everybody.

One thing that will really get your attention is a fire alarm blasting you out of a peaceful sleep in a hotel room. That happened to us a few mornings ago. On the day after we arrived, alarms were going off all over the hotel. The staff said to ignore them, as they were testing the system. It went on all day. Two days later, at about 07:00 the alarm came on and did not go off. I stuck my head out in the hall to sniff for smoke. Amazingly, Eunie was sleeping through it. I did see a few people strolling out, so I woke her up and said that it might be a good idea to go outside for a while. She grumbled, but complied. Here’s the small mob milling around outside trying to figure out what was going on:

Most guests were still in the building eating breakfast. I couldn’t stay inside. I’ve got ear damage from gunfire and flying helicopters, so loud noises really hurt. The staff finally told us that someone had tripped the alarm on the third floor. Soon the Hamilton Fire Service arrived:

I think that they already knew it was a false alarm, but they scurried inside with all their gear anyway. “Good practice”, they said:

Eunie stood bleary-eyed out in front clutching her precious Toshiba notebook:

I had grabbed my computer, my three cameras and a backup hard disk which contains our whole life. Eunie forgot her glasses and jewellery. Fortunately, I was spared the hazard of running back into a burning hotel to retrieve her missing items.

All this is mildly amusing, but it’s not the best of the story.

As I stood out in front, I was waiting to hear the grumbling, cursing, blaming, lawsuit threats and the other usual reactions that I was expecting. Instead, it was like a garden party. People stood around joking and smoking and generally trying to out-quip each other. When we were told that some jerk had tripped the fire alarm, the most vicious remark that I heard came from a laughing woman who asked, “When you catch him, we can beat him up, eh?” All of this seemed rather surreal to me, as if I had suddenly been teleported to Munchkin Land. I expected to see Dorothy exit the hotel at any moment in her ruby slippers.

Then it came to me. I’m in Canada.

This FROM: MadDog

One of my dive buddies (Val Jerram) and I were scouting out a dive site for the Faded Glory Dive Crew on Saturday morning (a couple of weeks ago). Just as we had finished discussing the strong smell of fuel (overfilled the tank again), I turned to ask her, “What else can go wrong?” Well, it’s probably always a mistake to ask that question, but I forgot that.

Just then the motor (a ten year old Yamaha 100HP 4-stroke) began sputtering. I shut it off immediately. Looking behind, I saw what appeared to be steam. I said, “Must have picked up a plastic bag.” Val said, “NO! IT’S ON FIRE!” Just then, I also smelled the smoke. I stepped back to lift the hood and saw, to my utter terror, that the whole plastic panel in the front that covers the electronics and spark suppressor area was on fire. Bright orange flames were licking up the panel and black smoke was now billowing up.

Not having a fire extinguisher (bad, bad boy), I grabbed a big funnel, stuck my thumb in the tiny end, and began scooping up ocean water and throwing it on the burning plastic. Yeah, sure . . . salt water is just what you want to throw all over your electronics.

The fire being extinguished, it was time to either try to start the engine or call for a tow. Being predisposed against embarrassing tows back to port, I gave the ignition a try. Amazingly, the engine started, though it ran very rough.

This photo looks into the fire-damaged area.

This photo shows two of the many damaged parts. The part on the left (the voltage regulator) is the one that started the fire. The part on the right is the ‘power pack’.

As a bonus, fire was sucked into one of the carbies. Now the motor runs okay at idle (after balancing the heck out of the carbies) and okay at high speed, but there’s a 1200 to 2400 RPM ‘three cylinder’ range that ruins your day every time you hear it. Forget trolling! Oh, well, I don’t like to fish anyway. Drift dives are miserable now for the boat driver.