Firefighters from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS)’s Lytham Fire Station will be donning fire kit to walk eleven miles for the eleven firefighters who have lost their lives in the bush fires raging in Australia.
Their tribute walk will take place on Sunday 26 January, which is also the highly celebrated, Australia Day. The crew will walk from Lytham Fire Station where they are based as on-call firefighters to Bispham Fire Station, eleven miles away.
Albeit not the most strenuous of challenges the crew felt they needed to do something to remember their fallen comrades and raise money for New South Wales Rural Fire Service. They will walk one mile for each firefighter who has lost their life.
Watch Manager David Curran said; “there was a lot of feeling within our station that we wanted to acknowledge the sacrifice these firefighters have given, not only to their job, but also their community. Everyone will have seen the horrific images on the news of the bush fires and we can only imagine the conditions the Australian firefighters are working in.”
Lytham fire station is crewed by on-call firefighters who respond to incidents, by a pager, from their work or home five minutes distance from their community fire station. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is crewed by volunteers so there is a deeper connection for the crew at Lytham.
The crew are hoping to raise £11,000 from their walk with all proceeds going to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. People are invited to donate to the cause via the link here.
The bush fires in Australia have been burning since September and nationally 27 people have died along with countless animals and trees. Homes have been lost and thousands of acres of land destroyed.
In June 2018 Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service spent 41 days tackling a wildfire upon Winter Hill which was one of their biggest incidents in twenty years which also destroyed land and wildlife.
