Fire recruitment campaign

More than 1,000 people have taken away application packs to join Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Recruitment events have been held across the county this month - including at Bletchley fire station. 332 packs were taken away from Bletchley.

According to Steve Foster - Head of HR at Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service - these are the type of numbers they would expect.

"I think the recent economic situation plays part of the actual reflection in respect of the numbers we are getting. But I don't think this is the whole story, because whenever we run a firefighter recruitment campaign we always get very similar numbers. Historically it's been shown that we always get a large amount of people wanting to join the fire service."

The people who return the packs will go through a strict recruitment process, which will include physical tests and training. They will then be narrowed down to a pool of between thirty and fifty people, who will be kept on file for a year, and recruited as and when vacancies become available.

Following last years recruitment campaign, when there were a similar number of applicants, 31 people were selected. 21 of those are now working at fire stations, while the other ten are at training college.

Mr Foster is confident the people who have applied represent the Buckinghamshire community:

"Essentially most people who applied are from the immediate vicinity around Buckinghamshire. But we do get people who come and pick up application forms from further distances. But the essential part of it is that these people generally reflect the community in which we work."