Meet an on-call firefighter making a difference to his Yorkshire community

Tony Clark is well-accustomed to pressing pause on his day job. Within minutes of receiving an alert on his bleeper, he’s on his way to responding to a fire or medical call across Humberside.

It has been his norm for more than a decade now, as one of a team of staff at Howden Joinery involved in an ongoing partnership with Humberside Fire and Rescue Service.

Fifteen years ago, Tony, who is now a Wellbeing and Communities Manager at Howdens, presented an idea to create an on-call fire service provision based at one of the company’s manufacturing sites in Howden, East Yorkshire.

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A former North Yorkshire firefighter, he had joined the trade kitchen supplier in 2007 as a safety, health and environmental advisor.

Tony Clark, who works at Howden Joinery, helped with PPE distribution during the Covid-19 pandemic.Tony Clark, who works at Howden Joinery, helped with PPE distribution during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tony Clark, who works at Howden Joinery, helped with PPE distribution during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Back in 2010, we had a fire on site at Howden,” 55-year-old Tony recalls. “Humberside Fire responded...We had a small fire...I expected a quicker response from the local crew.

"I got talking to the crews that came and found out that Monday to Friday daytime during the normal week, Howden Fire Station struggled, like most on-call fire stations struggle, to have on-call firefighters released from the workplace to keep the fire engines available.

"I thought maybe there was something we could do as a business to look at the recruitment of our personnel on site to become on-call firefighters.”

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Like full-time firefighters, on-call crews are called upon to attend a range of incidents including fires, floods, road traffic collisions, water rescues and chemical spills.

Tony Clark with members of his family in London.Tony Clark with members of his family in London.
Tony Clark with members of his family in London.

Most have full-time occupations outside of the Fire Service and have an agreement with their employers that they can be released from their role to attend incidents as and when required. They receive regular training and also have opportunities to carry out additional duties such as community fire safety sessions and equipment maintenance and testing.

Tony had previous experience, having spent several years as an on-call firefighter in North Yorkshire. In 2011, he became an on-call firefighter at Howden station for Humberside Fire and Rescue along with three of his colleagues from Howdens.

"From eight o’clock in the morning to five o’clock in the evening Monday to Friday, the four of us could be on-call and released from work to respond to incidents and that’s what we did…From a community point of view, we were there, we were available and we could respond.”

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It is an example of how businesses can support their communities and help local emergency services, with benefits to the company too. As Head of Supply Chain Operations for Howdens Julian Lee explained in a video back in 2019, "if we can have highly skilled individuals working in our operation, it helps embed a culture of safety in the workplace, which is fantastic”.

On-call firefighter Tony Clark.On-call firefighter Tony Clark.
On-call firefighter Tony Clark.

Since 2011, more Howdens employees have become on-call firefighters and have put their day jobs on hold on thousands of occasions to respond to calls across the Humberside area. Partnerships have also run during that period between the company and fire services in Cheshire and Northamptonshire.

In Humberside, Tony also responds to medical calls as an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR). This is when firefighters with enhanced medical training respond, single crewed, to medical emergencies in a car on behalf of Yorkshire Ambulance Service, using observation equipment to assess and treat patients before an ambulance arrives.

It is predominantly for calls such as cardiac arrests, breathing difficulties and chest pains. Tony explains: "They’re all incidents where somebody really needs someone from a medical point of view to get there really fast.”

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In 2021, Tony received a Queen’s Fire Service Medal, awarded for distinguished service or gallantry. As well as being passionate about demonstrating the benefit of on-call firefighting, he was involved in the mammoth task of handling personal protective equipment (PPE) in the Humber region during the Covid-19 pandemic, with The Humber Local Resilience Forum.

A PPE hub was set up at Howdens, where deliveries were consolidated and then PPE was dispatched on to frontline personnel. By May 2021, on-call firefighters at Howden Fire Station had managed and delivered over 3,000,000 items of PPE and medical supplies for the Humber region. By the time the hub came to a close last year, that total had passed eight million, Tony says.

In all he does, he is motivated, he says, by being able to support his local community. Howdens too describes itself as a company with pride in giving back to the community. It is currently housing a temporary fire station at its Howden site whilst Howden Fire Station undergoes a rebuild.

For Tony and his on-call colleagues, it’s business as usual. “The bleepers go off, staff are released to do whatever they’re needed to do in the community, have a massive impact, and then come back to work and carry on their normal jobs,” he says.

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"Sometimes it might be 20 minutes, sometimes it could be 12 hours, you just don’t know, until the incident happens, what you’re going to,” he continues. “I think anybody would be a liar if they said their adrenaline wasn’t pumping…

"You do unfortunately because of the nature of the job, whether it’s on the (medical) car or fire engine, see some things that some people hopefully never have to see or be involved with in their life.

"But we have a strong network of support...And you know you’re doing the right thing, serving the community and helping out.”

To find out more about being an on-call firefighter, visit oncallfire.uk

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