Wellingborough Fire Station

Address: Irthlingborough Road, Wellingborough, NN8 1LQ

Station Manager: Dave Wilson

Contact details can be found here

Wellingborough is a growing town with a diverse population of 76,000 that covers large housing estates as well as commercial premises and industrial estates in Lodge Farm and Finedon Road.

Prominent landmarks in the town include Isebrook Hospital and Wellingborough railway station, while key transport routes within the patch include stretches of the A45 and A509.

As well as covering the town of Wellingborough itself, crews will attend incidents in the large rural area surrounding it including the villages of Earls Barton, Isham, Irthlingborough, Bozeat and Wollaston.

The station is covered 24/7 by four watches (Red, White, Blue and Green) – each of which has six wholetime firefighters attached to them. There are also seven retained (on-call) firefighters who respond to alerts when there is an incident.

The station boasts a Scania fire pump which seats six wholetime firefighters, and a compact pump which seats five and is used by the on-call firefighters.

Wellingborough attends on average between 900 to 1,000 incidents a year, which includes RTCs on the A45 and fires in domestic properties, industrial buildings and fields.

The rescue of animals in distress, however, is becoming a significant part of the Wellingborough crews’ role and is an area in which they specialise.

 

The station is home to the UNIMOG, a 14-tonne vehicle that can help rescue trapped animals and is as effective an off-road machine as there is – often attending incidents on muddy farms.

The UNIMOG was the busiest special vehicle in Northamptonshire in 2020, being called out 113 times. Crews at Wellingborough are specially trained to rescue different types of animal and are so highly regarded they are often called out across border to help neighbouring fire services.

Wellingborough also specialises in water rescue, with the station housing a water rescue boat and a water safety instructor on each Watch. Crews have access to operational suits that will keep them warm in the coldest of waters, and they undertake comprehensive training in both fast flowing water and high tide conditions to ensure they can provide resilience both locally and nationally in times of flooding.

 

The station at Wellingborough is also home to the Northamptonshire Search and Rescue Team, and neighbours the East Midlands Ambulance Service station on Irthlingborough Road.

The fire station was built on top of a Civil Defence communications bunker, that was located on the site during the cold war era.