Fire Service welcomes seven new firefighters

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service has welcomed seven new on-call firefighters after they completed their basic training course at Maldon Fire Station this week.

The new recruits all live or work within five minutes of an on-call fire station and will respond to incidents when paged. They will be heading to Billericay, Burnham-on-Crouch, Epping, Leaden Roding, Tillingham and Tollesbury fire stations.

The team completed their two-week intensive training course on Friday 24 May and will continue their training at their home stations. 

Firefighter Jamie Bishop is heading to Tillingham Fire Station after seeing an opportunity to help his community.

He said: “I work from home as a cyber security analyst so I can provide fire cover while working from home and in my spare time on evenings and weekends. I thought it would be good to help my local community.”

More than three quarters of fire stations in Essex are staffed by on-call firefighters. They all live or work within five minutes of the fire station and are paged when there is an incident. This means they can go about their daily business working or spending time in their community while helping to keep the fire station available when needed. 

As well as responding to incidents, on-call firefighters also carry out home fire safety visits, attend community events and visit community hubs like schools and care homes to give safety advice. 

If you live or work within five minutes of an on-call fire station, you could be paid to protect your community as an on-call firefighter. 

Find out more here.