The UK fire and rescue service has 52 services across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Each service has a mixture of office-based and operational employees. Operational employees work under different contracts to ‘crew’ a fire station, which includes full-time firefighters, on-call firefighters (also known as retained firefighters in some services), and volunteers.

On-call firefighters play a critical role in keeping their communities safe. They respond to emergencies when needed, often managing their on-call work alongside full-time jobs, family commitments, and other activities. They are the backbone of many fire and rescue services in both cities and rural areas.

Not all fire and rescue services have on-call stations, so please check whether your local service has stations that need on-call personnel.

Why are on-call firefighters needed?

On-call firefighters are a vital part of today’s fire and rescue service. They provide an effective, efficient service that covers emergencies across more than 90% of the United Kingdom. Fire and rescue services actively recruit people from within their communities who can respond on an on-call basis at certain locations.

This can be challenging in smaller towns and rural areas because the number of people living and working within small communities has reduced in recent years. On-call firefighters are a crucial and highly valued asset to fire and rescue services and their communities.

Who can be an on-call firefighter?

Anyone can become an on-call firefighter if they have the right values, a desire to serve their community, and can achieve the right entry level. Fire and rescue services need people from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to better serve and represent the diverse communities they protect. On-Call firefighters are like any other paid employee working in the fire and rescue service and come from all areas of the community. You could, for example, be a stay-at-home parent, in full or part-time employment, working for yourself, studying at your local college or university, or not currently employed.

You don’t need any previous firefighting experience, just the passion to protect and help your community. A good level of fitness is key, but this is something most people can develop beforehand.

On-call firefighters require effective communication skills together with personal skills such as self-motivation, reliability, flexibility, determination, commitment, enthusiasm, and the ability to work within a team. They also need to be able to reflect the core values and behaviours set out by their fire and rescue service.

Many employers are prepared to release on-call firefighters from their workplace to attend an emergency incident. Other on-call firefighters are self-employed, or simply have time available to help serve and protect their community. When firefighters are on-call and their pager sounds, they need to be able to stop whatever they are doing and report immediately to their fire station.

Without the support and encouragement of their partners and families, on-call firefighters would struggle to carry out their role. This support does mean that occasionally the lives of partners and families can be affected. It may be difficult to plan ‘spur of the moment’ activities, or you can be called out in the middle of the night. However, having an on-call firefighter within the family does have its advantages too such as, serving and protecting the community in which you live, being a positive role model within the community, increased confidence and continual development of new skills, and financial reward.