CUTS to Okehampton’s daytime fire service were voted through at the region’s fire and rescue headquarters in Exeter on Friday (January 10) – just as firefighters in Okehampton were putting out a fire in a deep fat fryer in the Okehampton College kitchens.

Both Okehampton’s fire engines, staffed by on-call crews, attended the mid-morning callout along with crews from Hatherleigh and North Tawton. The crews used fire blankets to smother the flames and afterwards ventilated the building to clear it of smoke.

Meanwhile, after four hours of discussion, the meeting of Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority voted through cuts, including the removal of one of the two on-call crews which serve Okehampton during the day.

Instead, the town’s second fire engine will only be deployed when a roving team of full-time firefighters is available, according to what Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service is terming a ‘risk-based assessment’.

One Okehampton resident, who has a family member serving as an Okehampton firefighter, asked how one on-call crew could hope to man the town’s fire station — which also has a 4X4 as well as two fire engines — with just one on-call fire crew during the day.

‘I think it is disgusting,’ she said. ‘What happens in the summer months when they may need the 4X4 for a gorse fire and two pumps and they are men down as there could only be crew of five for that one pump?’

She added: ‘Our firefighters know what is needed. They do an amazing job with quick turnout times and a very clean and tidy station and they get treated like this.’

Tavistock is also set to lose its second on-call crew in the day along with stations in Brixham, Dartmouth, Honiton, Ilfracombe, Sidmouth, Teignmouth, Tiverton, Wells and Williton.

Fire authority members, drawn from Devon County Council, Somerset County Council and the Plymouth and Torbay unitary authorities, decided on Friday to close two fire stations in Devon, at Budleigh Salterton and Topsham in east Devon. Plans to close Appledore, Ashburton, Colyton, Kingston, Porlock and Woolacombe stations were abandoned due to the strength of public opposition.