Fire station open day raises over £4400 for charity

09/08/2022

Thousands of people were welcomed to Dogsthorpe fire station on Saturday for their action-packed open day. It was the first open day at the station since 2019 – and it was a huge success, with over £4400 raised for charity.

All the donations will be split between The Fire Fighter’s Charity and Peterborough Food Bank. They also collected food on the day for the food bank.

Fun activities at the station included dunk-a-firefighter and a hose reel challenge, where the public got behind a hose reel to extinguish flames in a simulated house. There were tours of the smoke house, a tombola and a raffle. There also a drill yard exercise where firefighters demonstrated how they rescue casualties from a road traffic collision.

People could also explore fire engines and their equipment, as well as take part in a bike challenge with Outspoken cycles. Refreshments were also available from Ladies Circle in Peterborough.

Dogsthorpe firefighter and lead organiser for the open day, Matthew Johnson commented: “The community came out in force to support our open day on Saturday and helped raise thousands for two incredible charities.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the stallholders, activity organisers and the local community once again for their amazing support as well as all our volunteers on the day.

“We look forward to hosting another open day in the future to engage with the local residents.”

The event followed a very busy week for Peterborough firefighters. While the final preparations were underway for the day, crews were busy responding to incidents and doing community engagement work locally.

In the seven days leading up to the event, firefighters at the station responded to over 60 incidents - that's between eight and nine calls per day. They assisted eight casualties, attended multiple house and building fires, dealt with many field and grass fires, along with attending road traffic collisions and water rescues. Alongside responding to incidents, they've also completed a number of risk visits, community fire safety checks, operational training, theory training, equipment checks too.