Brightlingsea fire station has two new on-call firefighters – Cheryl Sutton and Brandon Hastings.

By day, Cheryl works as an interior designer with interior and architectural design business Rebels Design. After thinking about becoming a firefighter for years, she said: “I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the challenge and giving back to Brightlingsea.”

Brandon works as a mobile car valeter, fitting on-call hours around his work. He joined the fire service because he wanted to help others and give back to his community.

The pair are among 12 new on-call recruits who have completed a two-week intensive training course with Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and will continue training at their home stations across the county.

On-call firefighters live or work within five minutes of an on-call fire station and respond to incidents when paged. More than three quarters of fire stations in Essex are staffed by on-call firefighters.

They all live or work within five minutes of the fire station and are paged when there is an incident. This means they can go about their daily business working or spending time in their community while helping to keep the fire station available when needed.

As well as responding to incidents, on-call firefighters also carry out home fire safety visits, attend community events and visit community hubs like schools and care homes to give safety advice.