Freshwater Fire Station has welcomed a new on-call firefighter as part of a group of 11 recruits graduating from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service’s latest training programme.
Colby Meredith will now respond to incidents on the Isle of Wight after successfully completing his initial training at Waterlooville Fire Station. He joins the crew at Freshwater and will soon begin drill nights while remaining on-call to respond to emergencies when alerted.
The new firefighters graduated from the service’s Learning and Development programme on Wednesday afternoon, having completed their ‘Mod A’ training. This initial phase teaches essential skills such as pump operations and ladder use at incidents. Further training modules are planned to continue their development.
On-call firefighters live and work within their local communities, committing to being available for a set number of hours and taking part in weekly training sessions. When their pagers go off, they respond immediately to their local fire station.
Learning and Development Station Manager Lee Wood has said:
“On-call firefighters play an important and valued role within our communities, so it is great to see another group complete their initial training before they return to station and do their bit to make life safer.
“Our Learning and Development trainers do a brilliant job in delivering this fantastic programme which sets the graduates up for life as an on-call firefighter, ready to work with their new crews at incidents.”
The fire service continues to encourage more people to consider joining as on-call firefighters.
