Recruitment & volunteering

The main aim for Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service is to ‘Make Northumberland Safer’ for our residents, in order to do this, we have a wide variety of roles working together.

Not everyone who works for the service is involved with firefighting. We employ a number of staff who provide vital support to our firefighters. This includes emergency control room personnel, support staff, and volunteers. 

We employ both full time and on call firefighters to respond to emergency incidents as well as work closely with our communities to increase safety awareness and help to prevent emergencies. 

Most fire stations are empty until there is a ‘shout’. Firefighters will make their way from their home or work to the stations and respond to the incident. These are called On-Call firefighters. On-Call firefighters book themselves as available to respond to an incident. This means that you can combine working for the fire service with your career or personal circumstances.

For more information on becoming an On-Call firefighter, please visit our On-Call Firefighter Recruitment page

The control room is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and is crewed by four watches which work both day and night shifts.

As well as taking and responding to 999 calls, emergency control room personnel are responsible for:

• receiving emergency and non-emergency calls from a range of sources, including out-of-hours calls made to the fire service and Northumberland County Council.
• mobilising resources to emergency incidents, e.g. firefighters on appliances, supervisory officers, and specialist units.
• maintaining communication with fire crews and officers during incidents.
• mobilising additional resources and equipment to incidents as required.
• maintaining information on operational resources.
• liaising with other emergency/non-emergency agencies e.g. police, ambulance, or the Environment Agency.

If you are interested in this position, our vacancies are advertised centrally by the county council:

Please click here to see all vacancies advertised by Northumberland County Council.

You can be involved in the Fire and Rescue Service without having to be directly involved in fighting fires.

If you were to become a member of our support staff, you could play a vital role in maintaining the operational effectiveness of our services, and therefore you will be contributing to keeping the public safe.

 

Support staff roles

We currently employ support staff in a range of different roles, including:

• Clerical and administrative roles
• Human Resources
• Technical (e.g. fire safety inspection officers)

All support staff vacancies are advertised centrally by Northumberland County Council here.

Volunteers provide valuable support to the young firefighters association, community safety academy programmes, home fire safety checks, and West Hartford’s community Boxing Academy.

We have been running the volunteer scheme since 2010, and the service continues to recruit new volunteers to help support its work with local communities in Northumberland. 

 

Benefits of volunteering

• gaining new experiences
• building your CV
• developing and sharing new skills
• helping your community
• becoming a valued member of the team
• choosing convenient days and times to work
• your travel expenses are reimbursed
• free lunch (at our headquarters canteen, or lunch expenses can be reimbursed for up to £5 when working more than four hours)

If you would like more information about becoming a volunteer, please email NFRSvolunteering@northumberland.gov.uk.

Alternatively, you can click on the link below to complete our online form:

Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service is committed to equality of opportunity and diversity in employment.

We welcome applications from all sectors of the community and we aim to recruit a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve.

Women and ethnic minorities are under-represented within the service and are therefore actively encouraged to apply for positions that become available.