Features

As UK politicians start to echo Trump and Musk’s attacks on public sector workers, Eric Blanc writes on how workers are starting to fight back in the US – and what we can learn  “I’m a federal worker, and I feel like a canary in the coal mine right now—because what they’re doing to us is going to...

The FBU and University of Central Lancashire are calling for all serving UK fire service staff to fill out a survey of their experiences of mental health. Rebecca Lewington, control member and FBU regional secretary for the Eastern region, explains how taking part will help build the demand for...

When fire and rescue services send firefighters out in crews of just three on a fire engine, lives are on the line. Firefighter reports.  A hotel is burning. People are still inside and need help to get out. Many of them don’t speak English as their first language and are panicking.  Your crew is...

Steve Morgan spoke to Welsh firefighter Rhys Fitzgerald as he gears up to raise money for charity by climbing Mount Everest A seven-year itch is one thing. For Rhys Fitzgerald, the seventh anniversary of joining the Fire Service is becoming a scratch. The softly-spoken 28-year-old, a retained...

On 3 January, a team of world leading fire scientists published research on firefighter health that made headline news. In black and white, printed on the front page of the Guardian, was a figure that was impossible to ignore: 1 in 4 firefighters who attended the Grenfell Tower fire are now...

Steve Wright, the union’s newly elected general secretary, sat down with Francis Beckett to discuss his fire service background, politics, and what’s next Last year Steve Wright’s son became a third generation operational firefighter. “For all my early life we lived in the shadow of a fire station...

Helen Hague reports on the devastating wildfires that tore through Southern California in January On 7 January, ferocious desert winds tore through parched terrain in southern California, powering two of the most destructive wildfires in the state’s history, turning neighbourhoods to ash, and...

Helen Hague reports on the past year of the FBU’s Red Plaque scheme When a huge blaze spread through a warehouse in Langley Street, in London’s Covent Garden on May 111954, Clerkenwell fire crews were among the first at the scene. They could not have known that three of their number would never...

Ahead of the union’s second disabled and neurodivergent members’ forum this January, Andrea Oates speaks to firefighters about organising for improvements in the workplace Dan Ascough is a station officer in London and an FBU neurodiversity and disability rep. In 2022, the brigade was found to be...

It is time to talk about mental health in the fire service. Riccardo la Torre introduces the union’s latest mental health project We are facing a mental health crisis in the fire and rescue service. Many studies have shown that mental health issues are far more common for UK firefighters than the...