COMMENT: A salute of thanks to our firefighters (From Oxford Mail)

COMMENT: A salute of thanks to our firefighters

9:30am Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Editorial Comment

Again and again, it all boils down to one thing – respect. And when you read today’s story on just how firefighters managed to save a 900-year-old church in Charlbury, you’ll agree.

Indeed, it is almost impossible to sum up just how precious our fire services are.

It took 60 firefighters to control the blaze at St Mary the Virgin Church, and had they not fought it so valiantly, one of the community’s great landmarks might have been lost forever.

Yet ‘miracles’ like this are the day-to-day business of our firefighters and it’s all too easy to take them for granted.

Of course, it isn’t just there for obvious emergencies.

It’s also there for the smaller calamities, such as helping reunite cats with their owners or removing schoolboys’ heads from between railings.

But whatever they are called upon to do, the reaction of the public is always the same (as it is with the police and ambulance service) – one of simple gratitude.

As St Mary parishioner Susan Woolley, 68, said, having watched them extinguish the fire: “They did a wonderful job. It was incredible how co-ordinated they were.”

But like all true heroes, the fire service is modest.

So let us salute them – the work they do is extraordinary and should never be taken for granted.