Children were able to fight their own fires with real water at Dunmow Fire Station Open Day on Saturday (June 27).

A board in a window painted with flames was a main attraction when the children were given hoses to tackle the target.

The annual event had a bumper day, and was one of the busiest ever with an estimated 1,000 visitors.

Families had the chance to climb onto the fire engines and through the day see five demonstrations of the chip pan blaze – one fire which should never be tackled with water – as the rocketing flames demonstrated.

Halfway through the day, the visitors saw an engine leaving the fire station for real when the brigade was called out to a fire in High Roding. It was a false alarm but it made the event even more action packed.

Firefighter Chris Smalley told the Broadcast: “There was a constant flow of people all day. We sold out of the cakes and the sale of kids fire helmets and model fire engines and kids’ fire extinguishers with water in them. That raised £700 for the Firefighters Charity.

“It was a great day in general. We showed the appliances and people asked a lot of questions about them. The kids love climbing onto the engine and sitting on the back. We also had the big Panther appliance used at the airport to put out fires on planes which carries 10 times as much water as the normal fire engine.”

Leading firefighter James Pearce said: “The open day was a great chance for the crew at Great Dunmow Fire station to show what we do. We would like to say a special thank you to the Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) and Stansted Airport Fire Service for bringing up their appliances and also to all those who came and supported the event.”