If you think Northamptonshire's firefighters are only there to fight fires, take a look at this!

Babies, cats and dogs, a swan and one elderly lady all rescued — and that's nothing unusual for county crews
Northamptonshire's Fire & Rescue crews came to the rescue of one stranded moggie on SaturdayNorthamptonshire's Fire & Rescue crews came to the rescue of one stranded moggie on Saturday
Northamptonshire's Fire & Rescue crews came to the rescue of one stranded moggie on Saturday

Anybody who thinks firefighters only fight fires can take a look at this list of 999 calls over the last few days.

Crews from Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue freed a 10-week old baby locked inside a car, reunited a puppy locked inside a house with his owner who was stuck outside, helped one man and his dog out of a river and a ginger tom cat off the top of as telegraph pole.

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In between all that, there was also a major crash on the A43 near Kettering which left a biker seriously injured in hospital.

Group Manager Stefan Douglas said: "People call for an ambulance when they are hurt and for the police when someone breaks law. For everything else, they call us.

"Last weekend was no an unprecedented spread of our day-to-day business. It's perhaps not as visible because there's no massive plumes of smoke or jams on the motorway.

"But that is the nature of our business. The demands our crews face are hugely diverse and that's why the pressure is on to put them through the training we do and try to be good at everything."

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Also among the weekend calls were two in the early hours — one to help an elderly lady in Duston who had her hand stuck behind her bed and another to rescue a swan trapped in a lock.

A selection of the calls answered by fire crews over the last few daysA selection of the calls answered by fire crews over the last few days
A selection of the calls answered by fire crews over the last few days

Northamptonshire is currently pushing to recruit more on-call firefighters to bolster it's full-time resources.

Mr Douglas added: "The diverse nature of the calls we get needs to be represented in our people. Our on-call firefighters represent half more than half our crews, they all have a wide variety of other jobs and that's the real diverse spread we want in our workforce to reflect community and profile we manage.

"On-call firefighters have, in the past, included everyone from self-employed carpenters to hairdressers, stay-at-home parents or electricians.

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"On-call firefighters do everything from fighting fires to attending water rescues, road traffic collisions and animal rescues to carrying out fire prevention work in the community."

One of Northants' on-call firefighters is put through their paces in trainingOne of Northants' on-call firefighters is put through their paces in training
One of Northants' on-call firefighters is put through their paces in training

Each year, Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service aims to recruit up to 40 on-call firefighters across the county.

The only conditions for the job are to live or work up to eight minutes travelling distance from nearest on-call fire station; be 18-years-old — or within six months of your 18th birthday — be physically fit

All training is provided and it is a paid role which people take on for the times of day or night they can commit to the service.

Anyone who would like to find out more can visit: www.oncallfire.uk