Sea firefighting team returns

The volunteers are trained how to escape from a crashed helicopter

A specially-trained team is being reintroduced to deal with fires at sea off the region's coast.

The Government is funding the team which will cover the whole of the East Anglian coastline.

Dramatic sea rescues used to go with the job for some of the region's firefighters but many fire authorities stopped doing it because of costs.

The offshore firefighting team for Suffolk was controversially disbanded in September to save money.

Cutting the county's sea-going team saved £20,000.

The move raised fears that East Anglia would be left without any cover for offshore fires, as the Norfolk team was disbanded in 1998 and Essex has only a fire tug.

Now the government is paying for three of the region's fire services to start again.

All volunteers

Fire crews from Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Kent will be on call to help ships off the east coast.

None of the money to pay for the service will come out of council tax.

""There will be no cost to the people of Suffolk or any reduction in the fire cover to them.

"Those are two elements we are absolutely adamant on," said Peter Monk, of Suffolk County Council.

All the firefighters chosen are volunteers. They are given extra training, including how to get out of a crashed helicopter.

The Suffolk team's last major operation was to tackle the fire which broke out on board the P&O ferry off the Norfolk coast on 2 September 2002.