the week gees it will turn milder as the week goes on “— it will turn milder as the week goes on —— at 6—9 degrees. but windier and wetter as well. hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines. theresa may urges parliament and the public to back her brexit deal after it's endorsement at today's eu summit. jean—claude juncker, president of the european commission, warns mps that the agreement is the best and only deal on offer. and in other news — a man has been charged with the attempted murder of a police officer after a knife attack in east london. the incident happened at ilford railway station on friday night. parliament has seized documents as part of an ongoing dispute between facebook and a committee of mps investigating the technology giant's use of private data. more from brussels at ii:00pm — now it's time for click. this week: fighting fires from the air, on the ground, and even on rails.

the californian wildfires are the deadliest the state has ever seen. they have claimed the lives of more than 80 people, hundreds are missing, and whole towns have been destroyed. but as residents tried to escape, the firefighters did what they always do: they ran towards the danger. it is a profession that relies on courage, dedication, and, increasingly, the latest science and technology — to find out how fires behave and how to beat back the flames.

and if you want to be a firefighter, this is where you learn your craft. the international fire training centre in darlington, in the north of england. this is where brave firefighters come from around the world to learn the latest techniques in fighting all kinds of blazes. they can simulate a huge variety of fire scenarios here. oil rigs, industrialfires, that's an overturned fuel tanker, and they can select any size of aircraft, from the smallest to the largest. that is an airbus a380, and this is a boeing 747. and it is notjust about gearing up and grabbing the hose. every fire is different. and each needs to be treated intelligently to make sure that you —

and the people you're trying to save — have the best chance of survival. wow! oh, my goodness. they're using the water as a protective shield. so they're keeping the two fires apart using the water. keeping the left at bay and then extinguishing the right one before we deal with the left. this centre tries to make the fire as realistic as possible. not just the fire, but the treatment of the casualties, too. it is fascinating to see the science behind firefighting. for example, in a kerosene fuel fire, water won't put it out. this cone of water controls the blaze so that another firefighter can come in with a powder extinguisher.

that is what finally tames the flames. and once they're gone, does that mean the job is done? well, that is where this thermal imaging camera comes in, to see what our eyes cannot. so once it looks like the fire is out, you still have to cover the area in water, just in case there are some hotspots. you can see here the vent at the top of this engine is still white hot, according to this thermal imaging camera. and there are many other ways to detect and deal with fires, and lara lewington has been looking at some of them. for the past two years, half of the uk's fire brigades have been deploying these drones. they focus on the safety of firefighters and their on—board cameras can provide much greater visibility, which means a better understanding of a fire and the way that it's spreading. using the drone we can get pretty

much an instant overview of the whole fire in less than five minutes. then we can move our machines and firefighters around like chess pieces, really, all controlled by drone footage. it brings benefit as we can see fires as they are developing. the team here have also used them for rescues and searching for people in quarries or water. the hd camera can clearly zoom in on a face up to a mile away. but of course when it comes to the spread of fires, what has happened recently in california is at the forefront of our minds. the university of westminster is researching a system that combines sensors on the ground and those in a drone. the aim? a solution for wildfires. these solar powered prototype sensors are tracking carbon dioxide,

carbon monoxide, oxygen, humidity, temperature, gps, and altitude. the aim is to combine them into one miniaturised cost—effective version they could be deployed en masse in areas susceptible to wildfires, providing immediate feedback. if there is something, they will alert all their neighbours also, forming to a network. alert taken, take measurements, convey to the master node, which then conveys it further up to the server, which alerts the drones, which gives a visual. it comes with all the information it has got from the drones, the ground sensors, and it is what the wind speed and direction is, what the temperature variations are, and where the fire will be. then it makes a release from the air and then you have the heavens opening and these lovely pellets flying in and hitting the target

when it the fire is. and you can fight fires day and night, 2a hours a day, with no visibility. meanwhile, this is the stinger. it can pierce through metal and pretty much any roof, dramatically blasting foam or water into the heart of the blaze. the quantity and force about water is pretty incredible. this pumps 1,000 litres a minute, with even more powerfuljet to the side, capable of 4.5 times that. it has an on—board thermal imaging camera to assist with that precision. blackburn is currently the only fire service using it now. i'm told it costs over £600,000. but as costs come down

and the technology evolves, this next generation of firefighting will become the norm. that was lara. back at the international fire training centre, i am about to be shut inside a mock boeing 747. see, when it comes to fire, sometimes it's not the one right in front of you that is the most dangerous. it's the one that is waiting to ignite. this is to demonstrate what happens when flammable vapours up high reach an ignition source. it's called a flashover, and it looks like this. just that tiny bit of fire in this enclosed environment really shows

that smoke is the real killer. my goodness, you can hardly breathe. it's stinging my eyes. they use so much water here every year that it would be silly if they didn't try and reuse it. so that is exactly what they do. all the water, the kerosene, the foam, the powder, and the general sludge from the site flow into a drainage system that goes underground and first of all in a small lagoon over here with the kerosene close to the top and is skimmed off and they can actually reuse it. it will burn again. the rest of it ends up in the next lagoon, where the solids settle out, and the result is a watery foamy mix which is pumped to the reed beds over there. the foam is made of animal protein which the wreaths actually feed on. so they effectively suck the foam out of the liquid. so you are left with relatively clean water. and we will have more

from this place soon. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that the price of bitcoin hit lows not seen since 2017, leading to speculation on the cryptocurrency‘s future value. uber announced it would make accessible cars available in 15 minutes or less to wheelchair users in six major cities after facing criticism of long wait times and availability. and star wars actor mark hamill teamed up with open bionics to send a positive message to kids around the world living with limb differences. remember, luke lost his hand to darth vader, but that did not stop in defeating the empire. it was also the week that nasa finally decided where it will land its 2020 mars rover. they hope it holds the clue to enter light on the planet. meanwhile, they also launched a workplace safety review into space x and boeing.

the two companies are contracted to fly astronauts to the international space station possibly as early as 2019. sources close to the investigation say it comes after elon musk was seen puffing marijuana on a podcast in september. and finally, you can never have enough star wars in the news. forget the forest moon of endor, devon, england, is where a local man has installed a 4/2 metre replica of an imperial walker by the roadside, where he hoped it would become a tourist attraction. the local council were not impressed and ordered him to take it down. as well as the practical firefighting that happens here at the international fire training centre, there is plenty of theory to be learnt about the unusual ways that fires can behave. now, a real danger to firefighters is when a fire in a sealed room starves itself of oxygen,

so it looks like the fire has gone out and the whole place is still really, really hot. then if a firefighter owns a deal to come in, oxygen roles in and starts to mix with the gases. they become flammable again and that is when you get a backdraught. so, wouldn't it be good if firefighters could use technology to see what they were getting themselves into? that is what paul carter has been looking at in switzerland. for firefighters, it is the things they can't see that are the most dangerous. the helmet i'm wearing has a thermal imaging camera fitted to the side. what's unique is that it it has a heads—up display.

it is visible over one eye, giving thermal imaging without obscuring normal vision. i'm going to use it going into this very smoky room to see what i can see. luckily, it is not too smoky and i can still see it. once the smoke really starts to go up, as strange as it may sound, my view of the fire is going to completely disappear. in a modern building, there is a lot of synthetic materials. buildings are more close than ever. there's less holes next to windows and so on. so there is a lot of smoke development and fire may actually be hidden behind smoke, or there may be people on the floor. the thickness of the smoke is a real issue. you always have access to thermal image, which starts adding some

additional advantages then. before was not possible to use the camera. working with a fire hose, you couldn't see as well, for example. but just as firefighters protect us, keeping them protected is critical. and nothing is more important than the clothing they wear out. one of the biggest issues with firefighters right now is that the gear prevents them from evacuating their own body heat so lots of developments go in them direction of preventing heat stress for firefighters. making uniforms fireproof and heat—resistant is a no—brainer but doing so while making it flexible, breathable and light is a whole different challenge. at the dupont european technical centre in geneva, they've developed a material that can withstand extremely high temperatures.

it's made of material that bubbles when exposed to high heat, insulating the wearer. it has been proven that if your body temperature, core temperature raises above a certain level, you start doing the wrong decisions, it affects brain functions and you don't want that to happen for a firefighter. eventually he would not realise when he is in extreme danger, he would realise it too late. you can feel how raised the surfaces, these bubbles, for want of a better word, have lifted off the fabric compared to the bit that has not been exposed to the fire. naturally these fabrics have to be vigorously tested and certified and in the centre's own lab, they conduct a variety of burning tests to ensure robustness. as a comparison, i look at what happens when the same tests are conducted on regular cotton. the result was rather terrifying. my goodness.

i mean, it's completely on fire. it's burned through. they've also developed a smart heat—sensing glove that firefighters can use to detect the temperature of surface or doors to prevent backd rafts. now, switzerland may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of fire. but it is surprisingly advanced when it comes to firefighting tech. for example, it's the only country in europe to have a firefighting train. this cabin is pressurised so in the event of a fire, this can be operated as a safe breathing environment. this bad boy is one of 16 used across the country

and it's an absolute beast. it can be used for a wide variety of tasks, only some of them specifically related to firefighting. it can be used as rescue vehicle for people on other trains. it can pick up derailed trains. it can also simply be used to transport fire crews more quickly and directly than by road. but let's be honest, fighting fires is the coolest thing this train can do. it holds 43,000 litres of water and 1,000 litres of special firefighting foam. also, a foam cannon. it can also create a curtain of protection, a mist of water that blankets around the train,

providing a protective area from smoke and chemicals. so far, at the international fire training centre, i've been learning how to physically deal with fires but in large disasters, the co—ordinators are the ones who need to see the bigger picture and try and control the entire scenario. it looks like the passengers are evacuating so can we get a fire appliance to start extinguishing the fire there? we really need to stop that fire getting to the main body of the plane. this simulator allows me to take the role of incident commander. i've got crew commanders sat at each of these workstations in charge of each fire appliance. myjob is to assess and call commands to them to try and deal with this fire which already looks quite serious, i have to say.

the undercarriage is on fire. the undercarriage is on fire? 0n the port side. oh, wow. that was an explosion. something tells me this plan is not going to be flying again any time soon. so as well as being the incident commander, you can swap roles and become a nurse or a paramedic or police officer as well. i can see how this could be a really intense experience, even though it is just a simulation but you really have to have your wits about you to make sense of the very rapidly developing situation. now, this is not the only kind of simulation used by first responders. kat hawkins has been looking at how virtual reality is used to assess the aftermath of an emergency. i'm at leicestershire fire and rescue, the first service in the country to invest

in virtual reality. their hope is money will be saved by replacing some of the expensive training techniques with br alternatives. ——with vr alternatives. i've seen the demo and the fire looks quite intense so don't think it is one i will be used to when it comes to virtual reality which isjust having a nice time. let's see. all the scenes in the training are scanned from the real world. for instance, this arson hotspot investor is a good reference for investigators looking for clues. it's the inside of a destroyed smoke alarm. ijust need to say, the environment is, like i'm standing on ash. it feels very real. teleportation. oh, my gosh. there is a body down there. if you enjoy the training, you will get more out of it. if you train in the virtual

reality environment, the retention rate is 75%. most of the talks i do on road safety are on powerpoint, we tend to make 5%. you can see why we are looking at this because our training is going to be enhanced so much. if you want to go 10 seconds forward, you can do it on the controller, just skip forward and fast—forward the fire. you remember from the scene you saw a minute ago, that tv monitor was melted. you can see how it physically affects things that are not even burning yet. then the idea is, when it stops, we didn't show the people putting out the fire, and you get the ability to dive straight back in the scene and you are in that same burn scene. seeing the impact of the fire is pretty remarkable. it moves quickly.

it's an immersive experience. the ability to hold objects, to photograph them, to mark them. we don't often see the initial development of a fire, forfire behaviour and how fire develops in a fire scene, it's useful as well. from a forensic perspective and training new people in the field, i think it will be invaluable. part of the reason this experience feels so intense is the realism. for leicestershire fire and rescue, this was important, that they move away from gamification and into real life. they have been working with a company called rivr, to make this happen. both cameras and lasers photograph in real life, 360—degree scenarios up to thousands of times. we've seen how fire services are using virtual reality but what about other first responders? here at the defence science and technology laboratory,

they are hard at work on how police might use virtual reality in our training. number 7 ferguson house, call a report for a violent disturbance. i can see some feet already. people wouldn't expect to put the police and virtual reality together. why is it so important police are interacting with technology in this way? you can replicate one—off events, an event which could be a dangerous or hazardous environment, you can recreate as a one—off and people would never get the opportunity to rehearse that but in vr, we can, soak we can give them that vehicle and the opportunity to do a one—off scenario and do it safely. oh, my gosh. ok, i'm going to see if she is alive. she has obviously taken some pills. there is a heartbeat here. i can definitely see already

how it could be used, in the way that a lot of games are, really, to open up your mind to possibilities around crime, why people may have committed criminal activities, those kind of questions are definitely there already. yeah, that was more enjoyable than the fire one, i think, which perhaps shouldn't be my takeaway but i could go back into that world where as the fire scene, ijust wanted to get out. that's it from the international fire training centre. i hope you found it is fascinating as we have. we are going to put a load more footage and photos from this place up on social media. don't forget, we live on facebook and twitter at bbc click. thanks for watching, we will see you soon. we have been looking

to the east for our weather for a while but we look to the west again this week. the atlantic comes back to life, deep areas of low pressure with that wetter, windier but milder. this is a view from north wales earlier, there will be bigger waves hitting the coast this week as the winds pick up and we will see that in a moment. right now, a gentle flow of air coming in from the east giving us a few showers here and there. this is the picture this evening. some of these showers in the english channel over water rather than land, maybe in the far south—west and channel islands, but elsewhere a lot of dry weather this evening.

we have seen a few showers in the far south—east and in north—east england as well and a few will continue, just clipping parts of the east of northern ireland and into eastern scotland. clear spells in the west of scotland will allow temperatures to dip away quite quickly overnight with a frost taking hold here and some of us down to —4 going into the morning. in fact, anywhere overnight when it is clear for any period of time, you can see temperatures in low single figures with a touch of frost, one or two mist and fog patches. we pick up the showers are still peppering eastern parts of scotland, across northern towards northern ireland and still feeding into the far south—east. these are overnight temperatures in towns and cities and of course in the countryside and suburbs it will be colder than this. into tomorrow morning and still on this flow of air coming in from the east, showers peppering eastern scotland, eastern england, some in northern ireland but much of western scotland, wales and the west of england will be dry and fairly sunny which means, for some of us, more blue sky compared to today. still single figure temperatures and a frost for many on a monday night into tuesday morning.

some mist and fog around as well. but on tuesday, the atlantic starts to roar back into life with a warm weather front coming through and another on wednesday with those isobars getting closer together. the winds pick up as the weather turns much more active the winds coming from the south—west, you can see from the colours, that means it is milder air coming in. you will notice temperatures heading up. tuesday come rain from the west and south—west across all parts on wednesday and wednesday there will be gales in the north and west, even severe gales in places, that brings the possibility mid week of some potentially disruptive winds. all part of a weather pattern which turns it much more unsettled this week, wet and windy at times but also much milder compared to where we are now. i'm christian fraser live in brussels where eu leaders have been meeting for a special brexit summit. theresa may urges parliament and the public to back her brexit deal after its endorsement at today's eu summit. the british people don't

want to spend any more time arguing about brexit. they want a good deal done that fulfils the vote and allows us to come together again as a country. jean—claude juncker, president of the european commission, issues a warning to those mps who think the eu can be persuaded to make further changes. this is the best deal possible for britain, this is the best deal possible for europe, this is the only deal possible. donald tusk, who chaired the summit, says the european union wants to remain as close as possible to the uk after brexit.