Sign up as firefighter and still keep up the day job

HENLEY fire station is recruiting up to 10 on-call firefighters to help keep the community safe.

It currently has eight on its books but more people are needed to ensure that the town has adequate cover.

This follows a number of departures in the past year due to work and family commitments or people moving away from the town.

On-call firefighters receive the same training as full-time firefighters but instead of being based at the station they are called out to respond to incidents when alerted.

Recruits come from every walk of life but they need to be aged over 18 and live or work five minutes away from the station, which is in West Street, behind the town hall, although people can still apply if they can work from the station.

Paul Robinson, 54, of Wilson Avenue, works as a portfolio manager but balances this with being an on-call firefighter in the evenings. He joined the station in June and had initially thought he was too old to do it.

Mr Robinson, a father to two teenage daughters, said: “When I saw the advertisement I was intrigued to see if there was an age limit or anything like that. But when I looked into it, it was more like a fitness and an ability level to do something, so I wanted to give it a try.

“It was more of a personal challenge to me and whether I could, at my age, be as good as the people who were doing it already. I wanted to try and give something back to the community as a whole.

“Some people join because it’s something that they’ve always wanted to do but I’m older than most normal recruits. It was something I’d never really been able to do before until my children grew up.

“I’ve found that there’s much more to being a firefighter than climbing up buildings and rescuing cats from trees.”

In addition to responding to emergency calls, on-call firefighters carry out work in their local community, including visits to schools and social clubs and offering prevention advice.

To qualify they must undergo a strict two-week training programme, including strength tests, water rescue, working at height and using rescue equipment. Full training for new firefighters can take up to three years but they can still respond to calls in this time. Mr Robinson described the training as “exceptional” and he has learnt to use heavy equipment, how to undertake water rescues and dealing with working in confined spaces.

He said: “On the course that I did I was the oldest and the people on it ranged from someone who had just graduated from university up to me and we were from all sorts of walks of life.

“Once you’ve learned the basic skills and completed the course and learned the skills of command, you go back to the station which, for me, was Henley.

“Every Wednesday we have a training night where we learn a little bit more. The learning never stops. I still don’t know as much as people who have been there a year or two years but the team wants you to succeed. There are people always keeping an eye out for you and, as you get more confident at what you’re doing, it makes things a lot easier.

“Every time you go out on a call you don’t know what you’re going to be confronted with but I know that my colleagues have gone through the training and I know they will be there to help me if I’m not sure what to do.”

Mr Robinson balances his day job with offering on-call availability during unsociable hours.

He said: “The career can be flexible. In theory, I could take my laptop to the station and do my work there. I give up a lot of time in the evenings because I know that I can do that with my work. Part of the commitment is giving up my free time to go and help people and that’s the crucial bit as you’re making a commitment to do that. I give up my time on the weekends as well. But you can fit it around family life.”

In the last six months he has been called out to incidents including severe flooding in north Oxfordshire, road traffic collisions and a field fire.

Mr Robinson said: “When you get to an incident, you’re super professional and you switch off from your day job and your worries about work and the nine-to-five job. You’re there to help people and that for me was the really big challenge, whether I was capable or good enough.

“The support network in the fire service focuses on both emotional and physical training. People have seen things before that I may never see but you can talk to them about it and they’re very open and helpful. There’s also a huge sense of pride in this role. I wholeheartedly recommend it.”

Katy Snoodyk, 43, who lives in Vicarage Road, has been an on-call firefighter for more than two years. She joined the crew after having previously worked as a firefighter in South Africa. She moved to Henley in 2019.

She works two other jobs as a project manager and as a crossfit trainer and lives with her two dogs. She was initially worried about signing up but has never looked back.

Ms Snoodyk said: “I was a bit worried about some of the things like the claustrophobia test. But I went through the process and met the crew in Henley and I had a chat with them about what it was about and we found that I could offer them what they needed.

“The process was extremely daunting but it’s incredible how you can rise to the challenge when it’s something you really want.

“Fortunately, I do 99 per cent of my work from home and that makes it quite convenient and because of the nature of my role, it’s very rare that there’s something extremely urgent that I need to do. If I’m called away, I can make up time elsewhere.

“The challenge of the job is all the additional training you need to do but for something you are emotionally invested in, you will find the time to do it.”

On average, on-call firefighters are expected to be called out two or three times a week for about an hour at a time, at night or during the day. It is requested that they spend a minimum of 40 hours per week to be available on-call. The maximum quota is 120 hours per week.

Ms Snoodyk said the role is a “great motivator” to stay fit. “It’s a very physical job and you need to stay on top of your game,” she said. “With the training development, we get to be exposed to things that in ordinary walks of life, you would never get to see or experience.

“If you want to learn about society and what goes on, it’s a very interesting way of doing it. We also have school visits where pupils come up to the station and we’re there to educate the children, which we hope they will then pass on to their families.

“The job is definitely challenging. It’s important that you know that you are going to have to make sacrifices. However, the crew are very understanding about the fact we have day jobs.

“I think when people join, they realise it’s an amazing thing to do and there’s that sense of accomplishment and being a part of something, you understand why you make some sacrifices. I’d say to anybody who wants to join, come and talk to us and come and see what we do.”

Michael Clarke, crew manager at Henley Fire Station, said: “We’ve lost quite a few people to the service recently as people have moved jobs or started young families so it’s got to a point where we need 10 new people to join.

“If we have more firefighters, then there’s more resilience, more people to cover for different hours, different times of the day.

“Years ago, an on-call firefighter would probably stay for five or six years and then either move on to whole time employment or they’ve served their time and move on.

“Nowadays, we’re seeing across the board — that’s the whole of Oxfordshire and other counties — that people are serving for less and less time, maybe two, maybe three years so we need to have a big, big push. We’re also trying to target people who can work from the station. We’ve got an office there and two offices downstairs where people will be able to work.

“They can work from the station itself and provide some day cover. The initial development course you complete within about three years. Within that time, they will do most of those skills.

“We’re always recruiting to try and get our numbers up. The number of skills that they learn once they join the fire service is immense.”

Henley fire station is part of Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, run by Oxfordshire County Council. Goring fire station, in Icknield Road, is also recruiting.

For more information, including for employers about staff becoming on-call firefighters, and to apply, visit www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/
council/working-oxfordshire-county-council/fire-service-recruitment