Cambridgeshire fire service records busiest day

Firefighters faced their busiest day on record in Cambridgeshire on Tuesday

Tuesday was the busiest day for a county's fire service since its current recording system began, it said.

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service attended 94 incidents in the county and 146 incidents in total over both Monday and Tuesday.

In addition, crews attended 46 incidents in neighbouring counties.

The current recording system has been in place since 2009 and the average number of daily incidents in July is normally about 25.

Straw in a barn caught fire on Tuesday

A car engulfed in flames was just one of many incidents crews attended

This stack fire off the A505 close to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford kept crews busy on Wednesday

Chief fire officer Chris Strickland said the county's call handling staff had been under "immense pressure", taking almost 800 calls across the two days.

"At one stage, the duty call handlers were providing mobilising support for other fire services across the country due to unprecedented demand elsewhere," he said.

"They were not only dealing with emergencies from Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, but also from London, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.

"Widespread events like the extreme weather pushes every service to the limits, as we saw on Tuesday with our call handlers having to provide support to some of the larger services in the country."