`This isn't London's Burning or Backdraft. This is real life." So says one of the subjects of D-Watch, a new observational documentary series, starting this week, about the work of firemen at Phibsborough Fire Station on Dublin's north side. Over the course of the next six weeks, the series builds a portrait of the realities of life at the cutting edge of the city's emergency services, and of the individuals who make the system work.
Despite the proliferation of fly-on-the-wall series across the channels in Britain, the format has been sparingly used on Irish television: the only notable example was the hospital series, WRH, a few years ago. D-Watch follows the work of one shift in Phibsborough over two months last summer.
In the greater Dublin area, there are about 28,000 calls a year to which the fire brigade has to respond. Every day, the central control room at Tara Street Fire Station handles about 76 calls, and Phibsborough deals with around 25 of those in a 24-hour day. Viewers may be surprised at how few of these calls have anything to do with actual fires. The fire brigade is responsible for approximately 80 per cent of the city's ambulance services, and many of its other calls deal with the harsh and often sad realities of life on the social margins. The first call in Monday night's programme is typical, a report of a possible hanging in a derelict inner-city building which proves to be a false alarm.
"We thought we'd be seeing a lot of fires, but hangings, car crashes and small-scale domestic emergencies make up an awful lot of what the service does," says the series's producer, Adrian Lynch of Graph Films. "The fire and ambulance service mops up a lot of the stuff that people don't see going on in this city. We're always hearing about the polarisation of Irish society, but you really see it in this series."
Shot on a lightweight digital video camera (DVC), D-Watch has a rough, almost video-diary feel, quite different from previous Graph productions such as last year's documentary Missing, or the series Sweet Dreams. (Graph is nothing if not prolific - as soon as D-Watch ends, RTE will start transmission of its next documentary series, The Leaving.) "The visual style is certainly a departure for us," agrees Lynch's co-producer, Darragh Byrne. "It's more gritty, down-and-dirty than the other programmes we've done.
"There are certain types of production where only DVC can give you the access you need. You can't be clambering into the back of an ambulance with a two-person camera crew during an emergency."
The production crew, under director Niamh Walsh, was specially trained before being allowed to accompany the watch on its callouts. Then, for two months, the TV team was based in the station, working the same shifts as its subjects - and, Lynch says, developing a strong bond with them. "Initially, we were a bit nervous because we were shooting so much. But we ended up with about 180 hours of footage, which we've edited down to six half-hour programmes."
The overall impression is of men doing a difficult job that alternates unpredictably between tedium and tension. Most members of the watch have been working for the service for more than 10 years, and their professionalism, good humour and humanity in often difficult situations is striking. Portraits of firefighting tend to emphasise the drama and heroism of the job, but in D-Watch it's a quieter kind of heroism, a pride in their work and a common decency, that can be seen in the men's attitudes to their jobs.
"Our concentration was always on the firemen," says Lynch. (There are women working in the service, but the group covered in D-Watch is all male.) "In Episode 5, a young guy is killed in a car crash, which has a huge impact on all of the watch, and we see the different ways they come to terms with it. We wanted to get that feeling of the intensity of their work and how they deal with it."
D-Watch is on RTE 1 on Monday at 8.30 p.m.