Firefighter Luke Oliver
Luke is a roofer and he’s also an on-call firefighter in Stansted. A role he’s paid to do to help protect his community.
Firefighter Luke Oliver is a roofer and he’s also an on-call firefighter in Stansted. A role he’s paid to do to help protect his community.
Luke was looking for a role that served a purpose and when he saw an opportunity to become an on-call firefighter, he jumped at the opportunity.
“It’s a way to give back to the community I live in and serve a purpose in my spare time,” says Luke.
“My favourite part is the sense of achievement you get on calls when you’ve saved people or property.”
Our on-call firefighters are competent firefighters who instead of being based at the fire station full time, they stay within 5 minutes of the fire station and respond when they’re paged to an incident.
They receive a wide variety of training to help them prepare for all types of incidents from fires, water rescues and chemical incidents.
Luke’s favourite part of training has been the Breathing Apparatus training. Our firefighters wear Breathing Apparatus to help them breathe in smokey environments. Each kit weighs around 20kg and is worn on top of full fire gear.
“It’s been the best training I’ve ever done in 29 years,” says Luke.
In his almost 4 years of serving in Stansted, the adrenaline rush hasn’t worn off. “Every time the pager goes off, the adrenaline rush is there,” he says.
Luke and his colleagues never know what they could be called to. It could be a house fire, an animal rescue or in Luke’s case being close to Stansted Airport, an emergency on an aeroplane.
To help residents stay safe, Luke’s best safety advice would be to have working smoke alarms at home.
“And test your smoke alarms regularly too, one day they might save yours and your family’s lives,” says Luke.
If like Luke, you live or work within 5 minutes of an on-call fire station, you could be paid to protect your community.
“You will not regret it!” says Luke.