Could you be ‘on call’ firefighter?

Have you got what it takes to be a firefighter and help protect your local community? At Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, we think you have, and over the next few weeks we are inviting you to pay us a visit at a number of our fantastic retained stations to see for yourself.

We require additional ‘on-call’ firefighters at a number of stations across the county and I am delighted to announce that throughout October we will again be recruiting for Eastwood, Tuxford and Misterton. We also have retained stations in other areas such as Ashfield, Retford and Worksop who are always on the lookout for people interested in joining our great team.

I often find that people don’t think they are the sort of person who could join us and we want to dispel these false assumptions by inviting you to one of our station open days so you can try some of the entry tests, speak to our crews and get a real understanding of what our job involves.

Another thing we find is that people often don’t realise what the difference is between an on-call firefighter and a full-time firefighter, and the answers to those questions are fairly simple. All our firefighters are trained to the same very high standard at our service development centre in Ollerton. However, while full-time firefighters do shifts, ‘on-call’ firefighters respond from their home or work in the community and commit a number of hours of availability each week – so they very often have other primary employment.

Whilst they are on-call they carry a pager that alerts them when they are needed to respond to the station; then they go to the emergency which can be anything from a smoke alarm, to a car crash to a building fire or a chemical incident.

So if you are looking for a challenge, fancy earning a bit of extra money in your spare time or are keen to give something back to your community in a hugely rewarding role, then you have nothing to lose by coming to one of our open days. Keep your eyes peeled on our website, Facebook and Twitter pages for information about up-coming open days and recruitment.

Be a local hero. See you soon!