A fireboat tackles a fire at Colonial Wharf. A typical big Thameside fire of the sort which the London fire Brigade had tackled over 100 years: Colonial Wharf, Wapping High Street, E1, 27th September 1935. This nine-storey warehouse was full of crude rubber and burned for four days, during which time a number of explosions took place. Sixty pumps twenty special appliances and three fireboats, manned in all by 600 firefighters, fought the huge blaze: they successfully prevented fire spread to the surrounding warehouses.