“You better not be here to put it out like last year.”
It’s a very strange sensation walking behind people widely regarded as heroes - the people who walk into burning buildings to save lives, cut casualties out of car crashes, and are there for the most unthinkable tragedies - and hear them being treated with hostility.
Sneaky side glances, hushed whispers, and people “just having a bit of fun” invading their personal space, were just a few things seen on Friday night from those feeling like their bonfire night festivities have just been threatened by the arrival of a fire engine.
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But sitting on Salford Fire Station’s second pump quickly opened my eyes to the reality faced by firefighters - and the difficult decisions they have to make to walk the line between safety and letting people enjoy their evenings.
It’s hard to know what to expect onboard Greater Manchester’s busiest fire engine, on one of the fire service’s busiest nights of the year, but it was very clear we weren’t in for a quiet night.
Five times the crew received a call to a “fire in the open”, after concerned people spotted something burning nearby.
Four of those times saw the crew leave without taking any equipment off the engine - but that didn’t stop each group acting more hostile to the arrival of blue flashing lights than the last.
The first of these incidents was the most dangerous, with a bonfire raging in the centre of a grove of trees, and flames leaping several meters into the air towards some nearby branches.
It was a tough call for the crew from red watch to make, walking through to speak with someone who’d organised the community gathering.
After careful consideration, watching the bonfire shrink slightly, and giving some advice to those responsible for the blaze, they decided to leave the bonfire running - but not before warning that repeat calls to the site would force them to extinguish the flames.
Although it may seem counter-productive to leave a bonfire burning after being concerned about its safety, there were a lot of factors that made this the best and safest decision for everyone.
First, the fire was shrinking, and the arrival of firefighters would hopefully make anyone looking to add more fuel think again, so there was a minimal risk of the situation escalating unless something went wrong.
Secondly, by leaving the bonfire running, the crews help to build trust with the community, avoiding any animosity that could harm future emergency responses to the same area.
And extinguishing the blaze could put the crew at risk of abuse or harm, and could lead to someone getting hurt.
Every person on shift tonight had experienced some kind of abusive behaviour in the past, so they knew all too well how quickly tensions can spark into something much bigger.
Fortunately, the hostility and aggression crews on Salford’s second pump saw tonight quickly diffused when the bonfires were given the green light to keep burning, but not every crew was so lucky.
GMFRS tweeted about attacks on firefighters attending incidents in Cheetham Hill and Openshaw, where youths started throwing fireworks at responding crews.
The latest attacks come less than a week after 25 youths set a fire in the middle of Northumberland Road in Brinnington, before hurling fireworks towards police and firefighters.
Our first call of the night, which was the only time I got to see any fire extinguished, took the crew to the Aldi in Eccles, where a group of kids had pulled what looked like old furniture to the base of a tree and set fire to it.
A man on his way back from the pub pushed the burning wreckage apart with a long stick because “there’s squirrels that live in there and I like them” - although the crew were quick to ask him not to try that again for fear of injury.
The crew pulled out all the bins and dowsed them in water as a precautionary measure - to make sure anyone coming back would be physically unable to set them alight.
Call number six of the night with the crew from white watch, who took over the helm after shift change at 7pm, saw us trekking through Light Oaks Park to find a wheelie bin had been set on fire, and a quick scan with a torch showed three youths cycling off very quickly across the grass.
Unfortunately, due to the position deep inside the park, the crew were unable to reach the fire with the hose from the pump, and after making sure there was nothing nearby any flames could spread to, decided to leave the quickly dying flames to fizzle out.
Although it’s bonfire night, and most of the call outs do relate to tonight’s festivities, their standard shouts don’t stop - with crashes, house fires, smoke alarms, and medical emergencies still happening across the catchment.
There was some reprieve for the white watch crew this evening, with both engines getting about twenty minutes to catch their breath and have a brew before a potentially life-threatening emergency alert came through - sending us all running to the other end of the station.
We tore off towards a black of flats in Salford with both crews - but after arriving they were unable to get in.
The crew instead had to get two ladders from the engines and climb over the fence to open the security gates from the inside to let the pumps through.
Chris Flynn, driver of pump two, explained to me later that GMFRS had agreed a system with high-rise blocks across the region that should prevent this exact situation from happening.
"A member of the security team is supposed to meet us every time we're called out," he said.
"They're supposed to be waiting a pack filled with information and keys and fobs and there should be someone at every block to do that.
"Details about the block, how many storeys it had, layouts of each floor, and where the standpipe is should all be in there for us."
These useful details can be vital in helping to extinguish any potential fires, with the all important standpipe being crucial to any extinguishing.
This pipe allows the crew on the ground to pump water up the side of the building, with an access hatch on each floor that firefighters can attach portable hoses to, allowing them to put out any flames without needing to run a hose up the stairway.
In the five-and-a-bit hours I spent with the crew, we made it back to the station six times - although we were only able to take more than ten steps away from the pump before the alarm sounded again on two of those occasions.
We were able to get a little bit of down time, spending a bit of time in the crew room to hydrate and even think about getting some food before another call came in - a surprising reprieve for everyone involved.
By 10.40pm fire crews across Greater Manchester had been called to 232 incidents - with 39 incidents ongoing at the same time at one point in the evening.
As there are only 45 engines covering the whole of the region, that’s a lot of work for the firefighters who are always there when a call comes in, so try to keep those bonfires under control so they can be sent to someone who actually needs them.
