Campaign launched to recruit more on-call firefighters at fire stations across Harborough

A campaign has been launched to recruit more on-call firefighters at fire stations across Harborough.

Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service aims to beef up its on-call presence at key 999 stations in Fairfield Road, Market Harborough, Kibworth and Lutterworth.

“Our professional on-call firefighters play an important role to operational response, working alongside wholetime firefighters.

“Being an on-call firefighter, you will carry an alerter and respond to emergency calls,” said the fire and rescue service.

“You will face all kinds of challenges within your local community helping to make safer people and safer places.

“In order to respond to emergencies within set attendance times, you must live and/or work within a set travel time from the fire and rescue station you serve.

“On-call firefighters do not work full-time.

“But they are paid to spend some periods of their time available on-call to respond to emergency incidents. “Many have full-time jobs, others may be self-employed or are stay at home parents.”

The recruitment website for applications for on-call firefighter vacancies is now open.

The deadline for submitting an application is Wednesday May 13.

“Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown and social distancing requirements, we cannot offer the taster ‘Have A Go’ day sessions that we would normally run as part of our on-call firefighter recruitment,” said the fire and rescue service.

“Instead, we will be running a number of online on-call firefighter recruitment question and answer sessions via Zoom.

“Here you will be able to talk to On-Call staff to find out what it is like to be an on-call firefighter and get an insight into the recruitment process.”

Rick Taylor, Chief Fire and Rescue Officer, said: “On-call firefighters play a vital role at Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service and they help us provide the very best service to the local communities we serve.

“We hope to encourage members of our local communities to come forward, find out more about being an on-call firefighter and ultimately apply for a role.”

He added: “This is a real opportunity for members of our local communities looking for a rewarding job where they are also giving something back to their local community.

“We look forward to seeing and hearing from you and hope this will be the first step to you joining our family.”

For more information on the on-call recruitment campaign visit leics-fire.gov.uk/on-call or email [email protected]

Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service provides emergency response, prevention and protection services from 20 stations across Leicestershire and Rutland.

Based at Birstall, in 2018/19 the service attended 762 road traffic collisions and ­2,569 fires.

Firefighters carried out 6,746 home safety checks and fitted 4,790 smoke alarms as well as visiting 279 schools to talk to pupils about fire and road safety education.