Yesterday strike breakers lost control of a fire during a training exercise in Easingwold, North Yorkshire, causing the roof on their training centre to catch on fire, it has emerged.
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service had to resort to calling in professional firefighters to work alongside their training staff to extinguish the blaze, with five fire engines and one aerial appliance attending.
At present, brigades across England and Wales are having to find cover in the event of strikes called by the Fire Brigades Union over the government’s attacks on firefighter pensions, which the union says are unworkable, unaffordable and unfair.
Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said: “The people who want to break our strikes are trying to undermine the work of firefighters, this fiasco demonstrates that their abilities are about as impressive as their sense of solidarity and civic duty”.
“The government keeps claiming that the temporary cover provided by these people is robust. That is utter nonsense and this latest Keystone cops episode just confirms it”.
Two pictures of the incident are available at http://bit.ly/fbustrikebreakfire
