NI Fire Service welcomes seven new volunteers to the Coleraine ranks

Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service welcomes new volunteers for the Coleraine area. L-R: Archie McKay, Assistant Group Commander, Community Protection, NIFRS; volunteers - Hector Hishart, Peter Fleming, John McLester, Richard Jones, Ita McErlean, Gavin Rodgers; Gerry Lennon, Group Commander, NIFRS; Andy Deal, Station Commander, NIFRS and Julie Rea, Volunteer Co-ordinator, NIFRS.

The new volunteers will play a vital role in supporting NIFRS fire safety education activities to help reduce accidental house fires and therefore help reduce fire deaths and injuries.

Following a successful volunteer recruitment drive, a total of 19 volunteers comprising 15 men and four women signed up to support NIFRS’s community engagement and prevention work, including two retired firefighters.

The volunteers will be taking part in a wide range of activities across the Coleraine, Cookstown and Downpatrick station areas including providing fire safety advice at community events, doing presentations and distributing fire safety leaflets in their local communities.

Alan Walmsley, Assistant Chief Fire & Rescue Officer, Community Protection said: “I would like to warmly welcome our new Volunteers on board and to thank them for choosing to support NIFRS.

“In line with what other Fire & Rescue Services across the UK are doing, we wanted to involve Volunteers to increase the reach and capacity of our organisation in delivering our fire safety messages to the community to help keep people safe.

“NIFRS is proud to protect our community and our community engagement and prevention work is a large part of what we do as a fire and rescue service.

“The addition of Volunteers and the wealth of skills, experience and enthusiasm they bring with them, will be a real asset to both NIFRS and the local community. “

The Volunteers have been fully trained to deliver fire safety advice and will receive on-going support from NIFRS through local Prevention & Protection Officers at each of the three station areas.

This is the first time NIFRS has used Volunteers to help support community based fire safety work and is rolling out this programme at 3 Station areas – Cookstown, Downpatrick and Coleraine. NIFRS intends to develop Volunteer teams at another two stations in the future.

If anyone is interested in becoming a Volunteer with NIFRS you can contact the NIFRS Volunteer Co-Ordinator at NIFRS HQ on 028 9266 4221 or email [email protected] for further details.