On Friday a ceremony took place at the HIWFRS headquarters in Eastleigh, where the group were presented with their certificates by Deputy Chief Fire Officer Shantha Dickinson.
The squad who are already qualified as on-call firefighters, will now be splitting their time between their on-call stations, training on their drill night ready to respond to fire-calls via their pagers, and their new wholetime watch.
HIWFRS Learning and Development Group Manager Andy Weeks said:
“Today’s graduates are already established members of our Service, working to keep their local areas safe from their on-call stations.
“They have shown incredible character in striving to become wholetime firefighters and will now continue to protect our communities across Hampshire and Isle of Wight alongside their new watches, as well as their on-call teams.
“I’d like to thank my Learning and Development team for their hard work in delivering this course which has led to our graduates achieving their goal of a full-time firefighter role.”
Firefighters Alexander Valentine and Rhianna Edwards will be joining watches at Cosham. Hightown teams will be welcoming Graeme Wilson and Oliver Buck. Michael Ellis and Lauren Forster will be working at Rushmoor on Blue and White watches respectively. Joining Southsea Fire Station will be Oliver Campbell and Christopher Nevers.
The Service is set to open its next recruitment window for wholetime firefighters in January.
For the latest recruitment information including details of our recruitment open days, sign up for our email alerts and visit the Careers section of our website.
To find out about becoming an on-call firefighter visit the On-Call Fire website.