Firefighters and staff honoured in annual awards evening

The bravery, professionalism and commitment shown by Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service’s firefighters and staff have been recognised as part of an awards ceremony.

This year’s awards event, which recognises good conduct, loyal service to the community and courage in the face of challenging incidents, was held at the Silverstone Wing on Friday, November 8.

A special commendation went to firefighters who saved two people from a major house fire in Abington, Northampton, in October 2018.

An elderly woman was rescued first, after she was seen close to a first floor window. Firefighters were then able to gain important information from her about the whereabouts of her son who was trapped inside. A careful operation was then carried out to find and free him from the building.

The Chief Fire Officer’s Commendation was presented to Group Manager Barry Mullan, Station Manager Gary Welch, Red Watch (The Mounts, Moulton, Mereway, Corby and Retained Moulton) as well as East Midlands Ambulance Service for their collaboration in dealing with an intricate and complex incident.

GM Mullan said: “I’m very pleased and humbled that the efforts of those who worked together to help these two people are being recognised with this award. This fire posed a level of risk and challenge for all those involved in bringing this mother and son to safety, which was approached with great professionalism by all teams involved.”

Another commendation from the Chief Fire Officer was also presented to Watch Manager Carl Villiers who entered the Ise River in April this year to rescue an elderly man who had been in the water for some time. Despite this being a traumatic incident, the victim survived.

The evening saw 16 firefighters presented with long service and good conduct medals by David Laing, Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire. A further three people were awarded for the rare achievement of 40 years’ service for NFRS.

Chief Fire Officer Darren Dovey said: “The annual awards event is an important part of the NFRS calendar as it offers us a valuable opportunity to recognise the commitment and hard work of our firefighters and staff. On a day to day basis the people who work for us are asked to deal with a broad spectrum of work, including everything from house fires and water rescues to animal rescues.

“They have to be prepared for anything, but we also need to be prepared to identify and reward people for their often extraordinary efforts and accomplishments. I would like to say a huge well done to all who have been recognised in this year’s awards event, we appreciate all of your work in helping to make Northamptonshire a safe place to be.”

Two new awards were also introduced: one to recognise the efforts of on-call firefighters and the other to commend outstanding community engagement. The award for best on-call availability went to Daventry Station Retained Section and the Community Award was presented to Daventry Fire Station and partner agencies to acknowledge the work done under the banner of Operation Unite (a project working to cut anti-social behaviour and arson in Daventry).