Women sought for firefighting job

A special event is to be staged to try to encourage more women to consider becoming firefighters in Lancashire.

The county's fire and rescue service is staging a recruitment drive to boost the number of women in the role.

Women make up 2% of the service's firefighting personnel, with 26 compared to 1,272 men.

The event will be held at the service's training centre at Euxton, Chorley, on Friday. Anyone wishing to attend should ring to register their place.

Firefighting demonstrations

During the sessions, which take place in the morning and afternoon, firefighters - many of them women - will demonstrate a wide range of operational firefighting and other rescue scenarios.

These will include extinguishing fires in industrial and domestic settings and releasing people trapped in crashed vehicles.

Those attending the sessions will also be given the chance to speak to women who are currently working as firefighters to get more of an insight into the role.

Lancashire's Chief Fire Officer, Peter Holland, said: "We know that there are women who would make exceptionally capable firefighters who aren't at present considering it as a career.

"Though they are missing out on an outstanding career option, we are missing out on the ability they could bring to the role."