FIRST PERSON: Top Gwent firefighter Steve Logan, MBE

“I APPLIED for a job with the fire service when I was 18 because I knew that an office or mundane factory job was not in my nature.

School was rugby ball-shaped for me, any academic work was something I had to endure in order to play rugby. I completed my first year of sixth form and was head boy but left after a year to work in my father’s car sales garage at 17.

The fire service weren’t recruiting at the time but kept me on file and an application arrived. I didn’t fill it in to start with because I was quite content at the garage but my aunt persuaded me to fill in the form. I was fortunate to be one of four recruited out of 720 applications to Mid Glamorgan Fire Service at the age of 18 in 1982.

I completed three months of residential training in Chorley, Lancashire. As a very naïve 18 year old living away from home it was an accelerated course in growing up and independence. I absolutely loved it.

In January 1983 I was posted to Bargoed Fire Station. In order to get promoted in those days, you had to take a series of exams. As I said, I wasn’t academically minded in school, but I passed every fire service exam within four years. I was 22-and-three-months-old when I passed my station officer’s exam. This exam consisted of five technical papers, which had to be passed in the same exam year. During my first year of service, Mid Glamorgan Fire Service ran a competition called Super Sportsman where you competed in 10 events such as the 100 metres, the mile and press ups and squat thrusts. I entered this competition and won it. I then entered the Welsh version and won that too. For whatever reason it wasn’t run again until 1988 when I became the Welsh champion again. As it hasn’t been held since, I’ve effectively been the Welsh Fire Service champion since 1983.

I’ve worked my way up the ranks and was an instructor at headquarters for two-and-a-half years, before becoming the sub-officer in charge of the green watch at Bridgend and the red watch in Merthyr, before being promoted to station officer in 1995. I became the station commander of Caerphilly Fire Station, with the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service approximately 16 years ago and also the station commander of Rhymney Fire Station about four years ago.

My role is to be the link between senior management and the firefighters. While I am a manager, with management responsibility, I am also in touch with the firefighters. I am responsible for the operational readiness of the firefighters and vehicles on my two stations and for the welfare of the firefighters. I need to ensure that my firefighters are as trained and as safe as they possibly can be when they respond to operational incidents.

I am also responsible for the formulation of the community risk management plan for Caerphilly and Rhymney and thoroughly enjoy community engagement.

Operational fire stations no longer want to be just an emergency response service, but want to be an integral part of the communities that we are serving. Our aim is to prevent fires and accidents through education and working in partnership with lots of different organisations and agencies.

The role of a firefighter has changed greatly since I joined in 1982. Then there were many more house fires and more people being killed and seriously injured every year. Thankfully, through the education that members of community fire stations give to members of the public, the numbers of fires has vastly reduced. However, there are far more cars on the road now than there were 30 years ago, which means we now attend far more road traffic collisions. This is the most unpleasant part of my role.

During my career I have been called to all sorts of incidents, some of which have been really unpleasant and some have been quite amusing. However, it is really satisfying to know that you are helping to make a difference.

I have always participated in community and charity work and have been actively involved with the Firefighters Charity. I run the Young Firefighters group at Caerphilly Station for young people aged 13 to 18 and I am so an instructor at Malpas Young Firefighters.

Blazing to Serbia is run by personnel from the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

In 2006, I met a scout leader from Caerphilly who had recently returned from Serbia with a group of scouts. He told me that during his trip, he had visited a fire station and found that the fire engines were almost 40 years old.

Myself, two other firefighters and two Scout leaders from Caerphilly then visited Serbia for the first time in March 2007, funding the trip ourselves.

It was evident that some of the equipment we routinely replaced and disposed of was far better than they were using.

With the support of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority and the chief officer, I have been able to obtain lots of vehicles and equipment to take to Serbia. A small team of volunteers then raises the necessary money to pay for transportation.

Blazing to Serbia has made 19 visits to Serbia since 2007 and has donated 23 fire engines to Serbia and one to Sarajevo in Bosnia. The engines have been equipped with breathing apparatus sets, protective fire kit, helmets, gas tight chemical suits, ladders and hydraulic rescue equipment.

The first truck was donated in 2010 and then the following year the first Blazing to Serbia convoy, consisting of six fire engines in convoy drove the almost 1,500-mile journey to Serbia, to deliver them to the Serbian fire services.

This five-day journey was filmed by a TV crew from ITV Wales, who then produced a documentary for the Wales This Week series.

There were 47 people on this first drive to Serbia, including young firefighters and operational firefighters. Driving, late at night, onto the fire station at Ruma, with all the blue lights and horns going is something that will stay with me forever. Five of our team, including my daughter, my son, sister-in-law and a couple of other firefighters had flown over to meet us and we’re were waiting to welcome us at Ruma.

I visited the country four times last year. Blazing to Serbia was founded to support the Serbian Fire Service, but over the years this has become only one aspect of what Blazing to Serbia does.

We have been working with Serbia Red Cross for four years. Our first donation of clothes to them happened in 2012, when we delivered our second convoy of six engines. The following year the Red Cross said it had an amazing response and asked for more donations. In December 2013, Blazing to Serbia paid for 12 pallets of equipment, together with over 600 kilograms of clothes and 264 shoe boxes filled with gifts for children to be transported to Serbia.

In January 2014, we found out there was a desperate need for children’s shoes and raised enough money to buy 302 brand new pairs of children’s shoes, which were transported to Serbia on our third convoy, this time consisting of five trucks.

Serbia has a massive problem with stray dogs, so Blazing to Serbia provided half the purchase price for ground to set up a dog rescue centre. It is also supporting a dog rescue centres called Kanis, which has received two shipments of donations from Treforest Veterinary Clinic in Pontypridd.

Last year we donated over 100 footballs and over 100kg of rugby and football shirts to young people in and around Sremska Mitrovica.

During 2015, Blazing to Serbia worked with Serbia Red Cross to refurbish two family homes. Neither of these houses had inside toilets, neither had a bathroom, nor water inside the house. We were able to provide both houses with hot and cold water, an indoor toilet and shower room and fit new doors and windows throughout.

Our project for this year is to help rebuild a home for a mother suffering from cancer, who lives with her eleven-year-old daughter in a house that is ten foot square and consists of basically one room. We need to raise approximately £23,000 to knock down the existing house and rebuild it as a two-storey home, which hopefully will secure the long-term future of the little girl. Our initiatives are funded by a small group of volunteers, who freely give of their time and energy to raise the necessary funds by holding social events and bag packing in supermarkets.

A recent e-mail asked if we were able to supply 30 hospital beds for a hospital unit in Serbia. I am sure we will be able to help, because there must be an ‘elephants' graveyard’ of hospital beds somewhere.

When I received a letter in November to say I was being awarded an MBE for services to British Serbian relations and voluntary technical assistance to the Serbian Fire Service, I was shocked, genuinely embarrassed and honoured.

There is an old saying which says ‘When the tide comes in, all the boats rise together’. I hope this award will help raise the profile of Blazing to Serbia and the work of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. While I am the recipient of this award, it would not have been possible without the help of the Blazing to Serbia team and the support of chief officer Huw Jakeway.

My family are the most important thing in my life and my efforts with Serbia would not have been possible without the support of my wife, Jayne.

I have three children, Ashlee, 27, Sam, 25 and Josh, 23.

All three have all visited Serbia with me and I am extremely proud of each and every one of them. I have two grandchildren, Oscar, five, and Eva, who is one. These little guys make my life complete and nothing gives me more pleasure than spending quality time with them.

I have no control over things that have happened in the past, but I do have some influence over what happens in the future.

It’s all about making a positive difference to people’s lives.”

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