Fire station fun for families in Peterborough raises thousands for charity

Hundreds of people turned out to enjoy the Dogsthorpe Fire Station open day on Saturday, with families given the chance to sit in fire engines, use the hoses and take part in other activities.

Nearly £3,000 was raised at the event on Saturday, with the money to be split between The Fire Fighter’s Charity and other local causes, which will be decided by the organising committee.

Firefighter Phil Gould, who organised the event, said: “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the local community once again for their amazing support as well as all our volunteers on the day. We had more than 20 off-duty firefighters along with other fire service staff, family and friends helping out on the day.”

Fun activities at the station in Dogsthorpe Road included dunk-the-firefighter, a coconut shy, face painting and a hose reel challenge where the public got behind a hose reel to extinguish flames in a simulated house.

Other popular attractions included tours of the smoke house using a thermal imaging camera, chip pan fire demonstrations and a drill by firefighters who used a ladder and MultiStar aerial appliance to rescue casualties from a simulated fire.

A blue light simulator was also a main event, in which the public were able to experience what it is like to ride a fire engine to an incident with video images of a crew responding to a call. Vivien, a 1932 Vintage Diesel Fire Engine maintained by the Vivien Fire Engine Trust, was also there along with Dennis Rolls, a vintage petrol engine from the Peterborough Volunteers Fire Brigade.

The Victims Support Unit, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) and the fire service’s incident command unit were also at the event.