Firefighters go ‘above and beyond’ as Northamptonshire battles surge in fires during hot, dry summer
Firefighters have been praised for going above and beyond during one of the hottest summers to date.
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service received its second highest number of calls ever this July with 1,721 emergency reports, just two fewer than its busiest month of July 2022 when 1,723 calls were received.
Crews attended 800 incidents last month, and August looks set to be even higher, with 400 incidents tackled by Wednesday August 12.
It comes as the Met Office said this summer is on course to be the hottest since records began.
Nikki Watson, chief fire officer, has praised the efforts of staff, who she says have gone above and beyond by dedicating any spare time to help maintain the service.
She said: “It’s been a prolonged spell of hot and dry weather and that does create significant demand for us across Northamptonshire, but also across the country.
“Our whole workforce, from firefighters to our hidden heroes in fire control and prevention and protection, it’s really been a huge team effort and all hands to the pump.
“Our team is made up of local people who are so dedicated, committed and passionate about keeping their community safe. They’re changing shifts, cancelling rest days and have been so flexible to make sure we continue providing good service to our county and can deal with whatever arises.
“We also have a really good partnership with our farming community, and for fires that have been on agricultural land, farmers come with bowsers of extra water and support us, which is fantastic.”
In July the service tackled 23 large outdoor fires, and so far this month they have been called to 10.
There have also been incidents at Kingsthorpe Golf Club and a recycling plant in Corby, which happened on Monday (August 10) and required the attendance of nearly every fire engine in the county.
But Nikki says the service – which is staffed by 267 full-time firefighters and 179 on-call firefighters - has the capacity to deal with multiple emergencies, and when it is under severe demand can call on support from surrounding counties.
She said: “When we are dealing with two big incidents, like we were this week, we have the capacity to deal with issues elsewhere across the county, certainly for a couple of hours.
“We also have a national arrangement where we can request assistance from neighbouring fire services, which we did for Kingsthorpe, and we also go over the border and help others when needed. We are all doing as much as we can to support each other at the moment.
“There is also a national resilience arrangement which supplies resources from all around the country. We haven’t needed to use that so far this year, and fingers crossed, we won’t have to.”
And while the service is doing all it can to protect locals, Nikki is calling on residents to also play their part and be careful using any open flames.
This includes disposing of cigarettes and vapes correctly, avoiding leaving glass bottles lying around, ensuring electrics are switched off when not in use, using barbeques with caution and avoiding any bonfires or fireworks.
Nikki added: “We have robust plans in place and are committed to protecting the communities of Northamptonshire, but people can do things themselves to keep their communities safe.
“We would ask residents to exercise common sense and really take extra care around using any open flame in these hot, dry conditions. Just using everything safely can make a massive difference.”