How the strike is affecting the region

NORTH YORKSHIRE

THE RAF issued a plea yesterday for organisations to inform the authorities if deciding to hold a fire drill while the strike continues.

The request followed an incident yesterday afternoon when they had to scramble a Green Goddess in York.

The ageing appliance and a breathing apparatus team were sent to an old people's home in Clifton, only to discover when they arrived that it was a drill.

It was one of only a handful of incidents, none of them serious, in North Yorkshire during the first full day of the firefighters' action.

Divisional Officer Steve Couchman said: "It has been relatively quiet. I suspect people have been following the advice to do all they can to avoid causing fires."

One Green Goddess crew saw action when it extinguished a farm fire which had blazed out of control near Selby, and another dealt with a car fire on the A64 at Pike Hills, just west of York.

Another report of a car fire in Clifton, York, turned out to be a hoax, the second in the county to which a Green Goddess responded in 24 hours,

Earlier in the day, retained firefighters dealt with a house fire on the western edge of the county near Skipton. No one was hurt.

However, the sight of pickets trying to keep warm by burning old pallets by Richmond fire station moved one woman to complain.

She said: "There is a charity in Northallerton called Chopsticks where the wood in those pallets could have been put to good use. The strikers could have burnt wood the charity had no use for."

SOUTH-WEST DURHAM

Battle to save cattle as barn is destroyed

TROOPS were called into action last night to safeguard a farmhouse and herd of cattle when a nearby barn was engulfed by flames.

Two Green Goddesses were sent to the blaze at a farm in Tow Law, Weardale, shortly before 6pm.

The ageing vehicles and soldiers - standing in for fire appliances and firefighters during the strike action - were deployed from Crook and Bishop Auckland.

Farmer Dougie Foster was full of praise for the stand-in crews, who have had around seven weeks fire training, though he felt the fire brigade would have arrived sooner.

He said: "My wife, Marie, noticed the fire at about 5.30pm when walking the dogs. It took about 35 minutes for one Goddess to arrive, which called for another and that came 20 minutes later.

"The soldiers have certainly done their best to cope with the fire and cannot be faulted in terms of effort and willingness. They took notice of my concerns."

A storage barn, containing about 1,500 large bails of straw and hay, was destroyed in the blaze at Lowhouselop Farm. But the main concern for Mr Foster was not the barn, but two buildings either side, housing 300 suckling cattle.

He said: "The main worry was the cattle, I didn't want to let them out because they would get spooked, so the soldiers concentrated on the sides next to them.

"It would have been devastating to lose them because I've only had them a year. I was wiped out twice during the foot-and-mouth outbreak. That was an horrific time and I really didn't need this."

An Army spokesperson said an Armed Forces fire expert and two vehicles attended, although one vehicle was sent back to base at about 7.30pm so that it was available for other calls.

Thankful for an uneventful night

NORTH DURHAM

WITH the exception of a car fire outside a pub, the evening passed relatively quietly for soldiers covering the north of the county.

By 9pm, the only incident they had had to deal with was a car fire near the Blacksmiths Arms pub, in Pittington, near Durham, which the Army had brought under control by about 8pm.

After a busy evening on Wednesday, calls to the emergency services lessened.

An Army spokeswoman at the joint operations centre co-ordinating the cover said the number of hoax calls they were receiving had also dropped significantly.

Army spokesman John Salisbury-Baker, who had been accompanying the soldiers on their call-outs, said the evening had passed uneventfully.

He said: "It's been pretty quiet. I'm told there hasn't been very much happening at all."

In Tyne and Wear, the general operations centre dealt with 103 calls between 6pm on Wednesday and 3pm yesterday. The large majority of calls related to fires in bins and cars and the Army's Green Goddess's were sent out 35 times.

Picketing intervention is discussed

TEESSIDE

POLICE have discussed the possibility of intervening in the picketing of retained fire stations in Cleveland.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Police Authority in Middlesbrough yesterday after members picked up reports that retained stations in east Cleveland would be operational.

However, an Army spokesman said last night that none of the four retained stations in east Cleveland, nor any in the whole of Cleveland, were open yesterday, although they may be at a future date.

Speaking at the Police Authority meeting yesterday, Acting Deputy Chief Constable Brian Bell confirmed the police would intervene in any unlawful picketing.

He said: "We have arrangements to deal with lawful pickets and, if it becomes unlawful, we will be in a position to deal with it."

Police Authority member Dave McLuckie, a Labour councillor, said that any illegal picketing of a retained fire station would be "entirely unacceptable".

None of Cleveland Fire Brigade's union leaders could be contacted for comment last night.

The Army had not been called to any incidents across Cleveland in the early part of yesterday evening.

The retained firefighters have a separate union to the full time Fire Brigade Union and it was estimated yesterday that up to two thirds of its members may be working across the UK.

Strikers receive public backing

Darlington

FIREFIGHTERS maintained their campaign in the rain last night on the second day of the national strike.

Passing motorists sounded horns to show their support for the picket line outside the Darlington fire station on St Cuthbert's Way.

The uniformed strikers, along with family members, stood around a wood burner, with banners proclaiming "Fair pay for firefighters" and "Please support us".

They declared their determination to back colleagues across the country, saying they would not be "held to ransom" by the recommendations of the Bain report.

Officials said Green Goddesses had not been called into action in the town yesterday.

The ageing vehicles were deployed twice on Wednesday night only to find that their services were not needed. One call, to a property in Bedford Street, was found to be a hoax.

Police said they could not confirm the number of hoax calls to have been received, but they are thought to have declined from the first night of the strike. One was received sometime after 3pm yesterday, relating to a non-existent fire in Nickstream Lane.