Nottinghamshire firefighters say they need more on call staff to keep local services working at full force.
Retained firefighters, also referred to as on-call-crew, have other jobs outside of firefighting, but when their pagers go off they have roughly five minutes to get to the station.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service say nine Nottinghamshire stations are in need of more on-call staff to keep local services going.
Without local on call staff, firefighters from further afield will have to be called which increases their response time.
Watch Manager at Bingham Fire station, Jerry Williscroft said: “This station is only retained fire fighters, there’s no full time fire fighters, they are all people who live in the community and work in the local community and provide cover in their work time or their own time.”
Video: Jerry Williscroft talks about what is required of retained firefighters.
Staff at Bingham Firestation were amongst those called to the fire which tore through Nottingham’s Player’s Factory, however events like that leave Bingham exposed to any serious incidents that could happen there.
This is why on-call firefighters are so important and the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service are keen to get more people involved.
