I am amazed at some of the opinions in this thread. You call the tower to tell them to expect "a lot of smoke on touchdown" and we are led to beleive this is normal?
The fire brigade are concerned about a fire on your engine and the common wisdom is to asume they are useless at their job and you tell them to leave you alone?
What is the no. 1 priority Safety or Cost?
Much better to spray the engine and have to change it and be wrong than not to spray it an be wrong.
It may be a bit of sport to bash people from Overseas but lets be realistic. You all take pride on doing your job well and my guess is that so do fire crews (not just in England but abroad too) These guys must have thought they had a real problem in their hands to spray the engine. By all acounts it doesn't look like it was just a few wisps of smoke. The protestations of the captain are one factor but so is the safety of everybody else on the ramp, other aircraft and the terminal, not to speak of fuel trucks moving about.