BUDDING firefighters have been fast tracked in a first for the Essex County Fire and Rescue. 

Evan Theobald and Leanne Hollington took advantage of last-minute slots on the training course and have now become on-call firefighters.

The pair completed an accelerated 17-week training course at the Service Training Centre in Witham.

Usually, the training would take anywhere between 12 to 18 months but on this occasion, the firefighters fitted their training around their full-time jobs.

Now, they are equipped to attend a diverse range of incidents just like regular full-time firefighters.

Evan, who is heading to West Mersea Fire Station, said: "The training has been great, I really enjoyed the Breathing Apparatus training.

"The live fire is definitely the best part of the training.

"It’s brilliant, fun, it’s tough and it’s challenging but it’s worth it."

Leanne added: "It’s been brilliant.

"To do the training altogether consecutively and condense that training time and really solidify the learning has just been brilliant."

Station manager John Warmann said: "Our on-call firefighters complete the same training as our wholetime firefighters but over a longer time period.

"Usually this takes between 12-18 months for our on-call colleagues to complete the training around their busy lives and commitments outside of the fire service.

"Evan and Leanne have completed this in 17 weeks and will continue training weekly at their fire station on weekly drill nights.

"We had some last-minute spots on our latest whole-time squad and saw an opportunity to offer those spots to our on-call colleagues for the first time rather than have a smaller whole-time squad.

"We’re really proud to have had a bank of new on-call firefighters keen to put as much time in as they could to help their local communities and are really pleased Evan and Leanne were able to move things around to join the course.

"Their commitment to their communities is commendable."

Over three-quarters of fire stations in Essex are staffed by on-call firefighters.

The emergency service is encouraging residents who live within five minutes of an on-call fire station to consider bolstering community safety by becoming an on-call firefighter.