FIREFIGHTERS in Okehampton got busy cleaning cars with suds and hot water in freezing temperatures on Sunday to support their comrades affected by the Australian bushfires.

The car wash outside the Mole Avon store on Exeter Road raised nearly £1,200 – double what the crew at the on-call station have ever raised at a car wash before.

Firefighter Adam Keats said he and his fellow firefighters wanted to show support for the families of four firefighters who had lost their lives – as well as all those who had lost homes and livelihoods in the blazes in New South Wales and Victoria over the past few months.

The event also supported firefighters in need in this country, through the Fire Fighters Charity.

Adam said: ‘We raised just shy of £1,200 which is double what we have ever raised before doing a charity car wash. People were so generous.

‘When we got back down to the station everybody was overwhelmed by what we had managed to raise and the support we had had, particularly given that car washes are usually held on summer weekends.

‘We all turned out and we all worked together and it was a great success.’

He said the event overran considerably from the original timeframe of 9.30am to 1.30pm.

‘As we were setting up at 9.15am we had cars pulling up and wanting a wash and we were pretty much non-stop from then on,’ he said.

‘There were 10 or 11 of us taking part, which is about two thirds of our crew. We had enough of us to travel down in two fire engines from the station. We had a good laugh, everyone joined in, this sort of thing is great team building, working for a worthwhile cause.’

He added that they particularly wanted to support the families of firefighters among the death toll of 29 so far in the bushfires.

‘We wanted to support their families who are left behind and also everybody who had lost their homes,’ he said. ‘We haven’t done a car wash for a little while but one of our guys suggested doing it because of the events in Australia. I think we will do another one given how successful this one was.’

The bushfires in Australia have devastated 10,000 hectares (15.6 million acres) of New South Wales and Victoria, displacing people and killing wildlife.