the us senate has voted to take forward plans to end american military support for the saudi—led war in yemen. the bank of england is warning of the possibility of an immediate economic crash if the uk leaves the european union without a deal. the governor says a shock to growth is possible, more damaging than the financial crisis of 2008, shrinking the economy by 8%. thousands evacuate their homes in the australian state of queensland as warning levels are raised to ‘catastrophic‘ for the first time. two people died in sydney when the heaviest rainfall in decades fell in the city. now on bbc news, 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 each sceanrio 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 a thousand litres a minute, with even more powerful jet 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 4.5 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 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 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 and 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 as 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 was 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. 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 trade in the virtual reality environment, the attention rate is 75%.

most of the talks i do on road safety or 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 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 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 went pretty 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,

fire behaviour and how fire develops in a fire scene, it's useful for mine 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 ourtraining. 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. hello there.

the atlantic is set to be pretty relentless in terms of throwing spells of wet and windy weather our way in the coming days. this hook of cloud here is the spell of windy weather and rain that we had on wednesday. that low centre rolling away. this one, though, developing quite explosively as well to the south—west, as we go through the early part of thursday, promises even stronger winds than we saw yesterday, and some very heavy rain. certainly not looking great for the morning rush hour. there will be a risk of some disruption, and bbc local radio is a great place to head to, to get the details where you are.

this is what that will look like, however. 6:00am, well, pretty muchjust about everywhere seeing some rain at this stage. 0n the plus side, it's a mild start, temperatures in double figures. through the morning, the wettest weather will start to push its way northwards pretty quickly. the strong winds, though, will remain an issue, i think, throughout in the morning, especially across the western side of the uk. around the coasts and across the hills, these are the gust strengths in the black circles. you can see 50, 60, maybe even 70 mph there off the coast of pembrokeshire. the stronger winds, as well, pushing further north into northern england and the south—east of scotland as the morning goes on. so, as a rough rule of thumb, 50—60 possible just about anywhere towards the west. in exposure, we could be talking 70 or a little bit more. the rain pushes its way northwards pretty quickly through the morning, many areas actually seeing a great improvement come the afternoon. quite a few showers, though, packing into the west, the north—east of scotland keeping the rain until the end of the day. a mild story, though,

thanks to that air coming in from the south—west, 13 or 14 as a high. quite a few showers around in western exposures through thursday evening. low pressure stays in charge. that's what's feeding those showers in. it just, though, starts to change its orientation slightly on friday, bringing in the air from the north—west, and that will be just a slightly cooler direction. still some showers thanks to that low for western exposures on friday, but for many, actually, a much quieter day. yes, still breezy, but nothing like the winds of thursday. and i think many areas could escape with a dry day, temperatures just a couple of degrees down on those we see on thursday. now, onto the weekend. another couple of these areas of low pressure look like they're going to head our way. the question is, will they be around in the daytime or will they come rolling through overnight? at the moment, it looks like some of the wettest weather could be first thing on saturday and first thing on sunday, and as the day goes on, we could see increasing amounts of sunshine. but stay tuned to keep

up—to—date with the detail for your weekend weather. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: us senators vote to pursue plans to end american support for the saudi—led war in yemen. a warning from the bank of england that a no—deal brexit could mean recession and a collapse in the pound. thousands evacuate their homes as australia's fire and flood warning levels are raised to ‘catastrophic‘ for the first time. and old gadgets finding new life in the african nation of togo. but the transformation comes with a risk.