


"12 Doors is dedicated to the commitment of the 19,000 or so on call or retained men and women fire fighters here in the UK"
PRESENTED BY
HUMMINGBIRD TELEVISION
Based on the book '12 Doors'
by Les Jones, Steve Eggleston and Mike Powell
Courage is a primary commitment for the 12 retained
firefighters of the crumbling seaside town, Stockwood on Sea.
Whether you're pouring the gravy at Christmas
dinner, mid-lovemaking or snoozing at 3am, the sound of
the alerter is the gunshot commencing the race... a fatal
sprint to exit the room as Clark Kent and emerge as
superman. 12 doors is the story of 12 heroic volunteers
and the threatening incidents they tackle, ultimately
bringing them closer as a crew.
"Retained firefighters (on-call firefighters) are a vital part of today's fire and rescue service here in the UK."
​
-RETAINED FIREFIGHTERS COVER
AROUND 60% of the UK.
​
ON AVERAGE YOU CAN EXPECT
TO BE CALLED OUT 2 OR 3 TIMES A WEEK
for perhaps a couple of hours.
​
They are the unsung heroes of local communities.
these fire fighters carry out normal everyday jobs away from the fire service and respond to a pager/alerter system requiring them to drop whatever they are doing, giving them just 5 minutes to report to the fire station.
they are trained the same way full-time firefighters are, they get paid for the hours worked, and have a training / drill night once a week at their fire station.
the crews up /and down the uk make huge personal commitments, and often miss out of family and social events due to fire service operations.
To the general public they are the fire service, they have no idea that they may have been doing their normal jobs a short time before attending the incident.
some return home injured, mentally and physically, and some may not even return at all...

"Meet Bells"

Bells might look like any other dog you pass in the street, but he has a special talent: he is a fire investigation dog.
Specially trained to trained to detect human scent post-fire and identify a variety of ignitable substances, our four-legged friend assist
with criminal investigations to determine whether a fire has been started deliberately.
Using his keen sense of smell, which is more accurate than technology designed to detect ignitable substances, Bells help the Fire Investigation Team provide a higher level of accuracy and improve the conviction rate against people who deliberately start fires.
The speed at which he sniffs out ignitable substances reduces the time required to investigate the scene of a fire.
When investigating fire scenes, Bells wears boots to protect his paws from shards of glass and other sharp objects; although it might
look dangerous, Bells is never sent into hot scenes.
Fire Investigation dogs provide almost ten years service once trained and attend annual training refreshers to ensure they aren’t barking up the wrong tree when it comes to identifying substances correctly.