Wadebridge firefighters hit 75 incidents in 74 days

The person who was going to fix your car this week. The one due to drop off your veg. The plumber you had booked in for the afternoon. Around Wadebridge, any one of them might have put the job down without warning and driven off towards someone else’s worst day.

📷Credit: Wadebridge Community Fire Station

Call-outs from one end of Cornwall to the other

Over the past 24 hours the crew at Wadebridge Community Fire Station have gone from one emergency to the next, mobilising to incidents strung right across the county. The station describes the run stretching from Polbathic in the far south east to Land’s End in the far west, close to the full length of Cornwall in a single day and night.

One of the station’s own photos shows a firefighter alone in the dark, hosing down a stretch of blackened ground. Another catches an engine and its hoses at a farm as the sun sits low and smoke hangs in the air. It has been that kind of shift.

What being on-call actually means

The people answering those calls are on-call firefighters, and the station is clear about the toll it takes. They are, in its words, being stretched to their limits, balancing emergency call-outs with their primary employment and their family commitments. That is the part outsiders miss. An on-call firefighter holds down a normal job and a home life, then carries a pager on top of it, ready to drop everything and turn out at very short notice.

It is the same model Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service relies on to cover much of the county, and it works because local people are willing to give up their own time to do it.

📷Credit: Wadebridge Community Fire Station

75 incidents in 74 days

The station put a number on the pressure. This latest busy period, it says, brings the count to 75 incidents in just 74 days. That is more than one call-out for every day on the calendar, absorbed by a crew who are also holding down other jobs the rest of the time.

Why the station is asking for a bit of patience

Which is where the gentle request comes in. The station has asked people to bear with them if the car does not get fixed, the vegetables do not get delivered, or the plumbing issue has to wait a little longer than planned.

The reason is simple. The person you are waiting on may have just dropped everything to respond to someone in need. The crew give their time to protect the community, the station says, often at very short notice, and it thanked people for their patience, understanding and continued support.

📷Credit: Wadebridge Community Fire Station