Gents and Gentesses
There seems to be some confusion about what the fire brigade does and how it does it. Whilst I have no experience in working as a member of a brigade, I have used their good services more than once around and about the aerodrome and have been very impressed.
For those who are not familiar there are different ratings for the airports in terms of fire response and capability. For the big airports they have the most resources and quick responses--this is why at many of the big airports you see satellite fire houses. Frankfurt is an easy place to see this when one takes off from runway 18. This response in quick time coupled with robust equipment and other factors will earn the highest rating. This can be a factor (perhaps not the determining factor but certainly one of them) in taking a wounded aircraft into a certain field.
Second, there seems to be a lot of discussion of why the Singapore brigade did not take the off-road option of reach the aircraft. I would imagine, with some confidence, that that this brigade has done thousands of hours of training and planning in how to reach stricken aircraft at any point on the field. If they determined, on the fly, not to take the truck off-road then I would think that they did this deliberately. They can see the burning aircraft and they know the stakes.
Third, there seems also to be a question about why the crew did not turn off the runway. Even without an evac, after a fuel dump I want the brigade to take a look at the outside of the aircraft. This may or may not involve the maintenance troops, but the fire brigade is also well trained to spot spills/leakage/other problems. In my very humble opinion it is best to stop the aircraft and have it assessed. If the engines are shut down and it needs to be towed, well the tug crew is already on the clock so what is the loss in playing it safe?
The fire brigade is indeed your friend and they are startlingly effective, if you let them, in working with you to assess, and if need be, to act. As one of the other posters stated, it would be nice to have one of the ARFF team chime in as I think there are a lot of misconceptions creeping in about response times, response equipment, and who tells what to whom.
As a last point, some of the posters have timed the response to when dousing commenced. A minute is a very good response. Perhaps one can remind me (without the manuals at hand) what the response needs to be--I know it is more than a minute so in this case the brigade was quickly in force.