Serving the communities of: Attleborough, Besthorpe, Great Ellingham, Rocklands, Hargham, Old Buckenham, New Buckenham, Bunwell and Carleton Rode.
Mark Wilson along with his management team manages the fire station and its firefighters in Attleborough.
Mark explains, Retained firefighters are a vital part of todays fire and rescue service, especially in a rural county such as Norfolk, where 38 out of the 40 stations are either staffed solely by retained personnel or have at least one retained crew. When we are called to duty by our personal alerter, we become part of a dedicated team ready to face any emergency in exactly the same way as our wholetime colleagues. We aim to make our area as safe as possible for all those who are living in, travelling within or visiting our area.
We all have a main job as our primary employment; most within the community that we serve. We can be called upon any time of the day or night and it is only thanks to the kindness and support or our local employers that we can make ourselves permanently available. Our employers allow us to leave our jobs at a moments notice for an unknown period of time, quite often we return within an hour, however, it is not uncommon to be on a shout for eight hours or more".
How do we get called out?
We carry personal pagers which alert us to a call, When a 999 call
is received, fire control at Hethersett Fire HQ operates our
pagers, and we drop what we are doing to respond to the fire
station. Once we are alerted the Fire Appliance is on the road
and making its way to the incident within 5-6 minutes of the 999 call.
Do we get paid?
Retained firefighters get a monthly salary which is the retainer fee, we get paid for the weekly training sessions and also for the calls and any additional training that we attend.
What we do?
The Fire and Rescue Service gets called to a number of emergencies and these include, Fires in properties, farms and business premises, Fires in vehicles and farming equipment, Chimney fires, Road Traffic Accidents, persons trapped in machinery, calls resulting from adverse weather conditions, Chemical Spillages, Humanitarian assistance and Liaising with other emergency services..
Training and Fitness
We attend a 2 hour training session each week, sometimes this extends to 3 hours and are normally called upon approx 3-4 times a week for emergency calls. You need to be physically fit, and have good eyesight in both eyes. There is a huge shortage of retained firefighters nation-wide. Have you ever considered a career as a retained firefighter? We have vacancies at the station for people especially those who can provide cover Mon-Fri during the day.
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You will need to live and/or work close to the fire station (located
in Thieves Lane) and be available to respond as soon as their alerter sounds
(if on duty at the time). Various patterns pf cover can be given, especially
day cover.
Find out more about opportunities within the retained service at Attleborough by contacting the Watch Manager, Mark Wilson 01953 456275