Tom.
When I joined we were taught never to put water on smoke as it will only cause water damage and not put the fire out. We were also taught to get in as close to the fire as possible and put water on the base of the fire and only the base of the fire. Incidentally, we were also taught to play a jet of water over the ceiling in order to bring down burning debris due to the fact a couple of O2 wearers had recently died due to this happening to them, ( that is what probably saved many a fire fighters life in our FRS but we did not know it as we did not understand compartmental fire development). Our commanders were taught never to ventilate until the fire was extinguished. I was not allowed to train in BA until I had completed at least one year on the back of the pump (in order to teach me what it was like to breath smoke.) Incidentally this was only allowed by the way because the H&S act was not implemented in the fire service at the time. Not to mention hook ladders! 
Hose reels no better than garden hoses, plastic fire engine cabs, plastic leggings, wellie boots, wolley overcoat fire tunics, no gloves, nor flashoods, and cork helmets.
Compare and contrast this to modern fire fighting techniques and equipment such as gas cooling, PPV, NPV, Compressed air foam, PPBA, A26 spec PPE etc.
What a different place of work and quite rightly too. 
And as to H&S legislation in the FRS; if someone places someone else in danger of death at work without good cause and RA then they should quite correctly be prosecuted, I believe. With appropriate training and equipment and the application of that training, along with appropriate command and control, there is no reason modern fire fighting staff cannot efficiently carry out all the rescue and fire fighting duties they need to…………safely. 
Much more safely than I had to.
Everyone has the right to go home after work.
Sorry for the rant everyone.
And the wheeled escape. Now there was a ladder to work from.
Crawling about in negative pressure BA sets.
Carrying down. Is that still taught?
Carrying up (unofficially).
Water fights in the yard. Good for morale
Volley ball in the yard. Even better for morale.
Watch sea fishing trips.
etc etc
Bloody glad I'm out of it.
