The church and charity’s emergency response vehicle was called out to provide refreshments to crews battling a fire at a home on Highercrombe Road which took more than 12 hours to deal with. At its peak, ten fire engines, a turntable ladder and three water carriers were in attendance with more than 100 firefighters also responding. No injuries were reported.
The Salvation Army vehicle arrived on site at 12.30am and left at 9.30am the following morning.
The vehicle, which is housed at Woking Fire Station, is one of more than 20 across the country which sees the church and charity provide welfare support for fire and rescue services around the UK. The Salvation Army can, if it is appropriate and requested, also provide emotional and spiritual support at traumatic incidents.
Major Ted Benneyworth led The Salvation Army team on site.
He explained: “It was a pleasure and privilege for us to be on hand to help our friends in the emergency services as they tackled a really difficult fire. We feel blessed to be able to support them in this way and serve those who serve others on the front line at incidents like this.”
Adrian Clee, national emergency response officer for The Salvation Army, said the church and charity has a long tradition of supporting emergency services at large incidents.
He added: “We have similar agreements elsewhere in the country and it’s great we’ve extended frontline support to Surrey Fire and Rescue. We look forward to providing solid support to teams across the county and beyond for many years to come.”
Jon Simpson, Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, said looking after the welfare needs of firefighters during extended incidents, such as the fire in Haslemere, is crucial.
He said: “Enhancing our response, the welfare vehicle made a real difference during the incident, providing essential support to over 100 firefighters. I’d like to thank the Salvation Army for making this possible in our Service with the new Memorandum of Understanding.”
The Salvation Army’s Emergency Response Vehicle for Surrey was launched last autumn.