The fire engine is pictured above during its 15 years of front-line service. Click here for a picture of the four people who will be driving it to Croatia and training the local volunteer firefighters.

16 September 2008

A fire engine is about to make the longest journey in its 15-year history – and it won’t be coming back.

Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority is donating the vehicle to the firefighters of Kraljevica, 1,000 miles away in Croatia. The coastal town’s 20 or so volunteers currently respond to emergency incidents in two vans, one carrying basic equipment and the other the firefighters.

The vehicle is a 1993 Scania P93 water tender with 65,000 miles on the clock. It spent most of its working life as a rescue pump at Newport Pagnell Fire Station before moving to Aylesbury Fire Station and then Brill Fire Station, where it was in use until earlier this year.

A team of four will set off from Aylesbury at 8am on Saturday 20 September and pass through France and Belgium before stopping for the night in Bensheim, Amersham’s twin town, in Germany. They will continue through Austria and Slovenia on Sunday, aiming to arrive in Kraljevica in the evening.

They will spend four days training the firefighters before flying back to Stansted on Friday afternoon.

The four are:

• Watch Manager Tim Parkins, from Milton Keynes, who has a total of 21 years’ service at Bletchley and Great Holm Fire Stations in Milton Keynes. He is now based at Brigade HQ in Aylesbury.

• Watch Manager Lloyd Davis, Brigade Equipment Officer, based at Brigade HQ in Aylesbury. Lloyd has been a retained firefighter for nearly 20 years.

• Firefighter Matt O’Sullivan from Bletchley Fire Station. Matt previously served at Aylesbury Fire Station.

• Firefighter Tom Bamford from the Retained Duty System crew at Aylesbury.

The mission has been organised in conjunction with the UK charity Operation Florian, which works to promote the protection of life amongst communities in need all over the world by providing equipment and training to improve fire-fighting and rescue capabilities.

Tim said: “The learning process will not stop when we leave – as part of the legacy of the visit, Matt has prepared a number of training presentations and lectures so that the firefighters can continue to pass on their knowledge in the future.”

Damian Smith, Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer, said: “Members of our fire and rescue authority are very supportive of any humanitarian work we can do abroad, in addition to providing an emergency fire and rescue service for Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes.

“The vehicle has been inspected and serviced at our workshop ready for its journey to Croatia and stowed with various items of road traffic collision and firefighting equipment."

Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s firefighters have been involved in a number of humanitarian trips to Eastern Europe and Africa over the years, and first visited Kraljevica in the 1990s to help repair the local hospital and orphanage.

In 2006 Tim and Lloyd were members of a party that took a surplus 19-year-old fire engine to Gjakove in Kosovo, where it is still in active service.