Service Picks Up Prestigious Emergency Service Of The Year Award

Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service is delighted to reveal that it has been named Emergency Service Of The Year 2024 at this year’s FIRE Magazine Excellence In Fire Awards. 

The ceremony, which took place this afternoon (Friday 6 December) in London, was attended by fire services from across the country – with judges having poured over hundreds of entries. 

This is the first time the service has won this prestigious award, having been shortlisted last year but missed out. 

The service was also shortlisted in three other categories – the service’s Corporate Communication Team was up for Team Of The Year, it’s training centre was up for Training Provider Of The Year, and Fire Protection Inspector, Sophie Winterbottom, was up for Most Influential LGBTQIA+ Individual In Fire.  

Commenting on the award win, Chief Fire Officer, Craig Parkin, said: “This is easily one of the proudest moments of my career – I couldn’t be more pleased. 

“This is the culmination of several years’ worth of hard work from every single individual in the service. Whilst we have had a fantastic year, being rated GOOD by our HMICFRS inspectors this summer, I can’t stress enough, this has been many years in the making, and I want to thank every member of my team who has been involved. 

“First, we will celebrate our success, and I will be joining everyone across the service in this. However, our focus will very quickly turn back to looking at what is next, and how we can do even more and work even harder to make Nottinghamshire a safer place to work, live and visit.” 

Today (Friday 6 December) also saw the service pick up another national award – with the Corporate Communications Team being named ‘Small Communications Team Of The Year’ at the comms2point0 UnAwards – a well-established and highly respected industry awards ceremony. 

Jack Grasby, Senior Communications Manager, has echoed the Chief Fire Officer’s view around the service’s one team ethos. 

“As a team we are really proud to have picked up this award, against some really tough competition and after a very busy year, but we couldn’t have done it without our colleagues across the service – and this too is an award for us all. 

“Our communications work seeks to inspire people to consider careers with us, make people safer, and support a range of other service aims. We also strive to keep people informed during large-scale incidents. This award gives us confidence that we are doing the right things, but we will of course continue to strive to be the best we can be and improve even further.”