OUTRAGEOUS, manifestly absurd, unreasonable and ultimately undeserving. These are just some of the words used to describe the firefighters' claim for a 40pc pay rise.

With North Yorkshire and County Durham covered by just 28 Green Goddesses, the militancy and intractability of the Fire Brigades' Union leadership has become painfully clear.

It is ironic that the isolated rural areas left most vulnerable by the need to concentrate the Green Goddesses in high-risk urban areas are those where the firefighters' current basic pay of £21,500 is a princely sum indeed. There will be many, many farming families who will not have seen that sort of income for many a year, if at all. That sum is above the national average wage and about £2,000 more than most of the soldiers standing in for them. Firefighters still enjoy the sort of job security now unknown to anyone else in modern Britain and their pension arrangements are handsome indeed.

Perhaps most people do not begrudge the firefighters a decent pay rise over and above the rate of inflation for carrying out a skilled and, at times, dangerous job. But whatever public support the firefighters have is bound to slip away as the dispute continues.

That has already happened as the restrictive practices the FBU wishes to protect have become better known. The arcane shift system which allows many fireman to have second jobs and allows them to spend up to half their working time on night duty asleep is one. The refusal to train in the use of life-saving defibrillators is another and resistance to co-operation between brigades another.

The public needs to make its views known. Don't, as many did in the very different Seventies dispute, honk as you pass the FBU picket lines. These strikers don't deserve our support.