Auxiliary Fire Service

The Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) was first formed in 1938 in Great Britain as part of the Civil Defence Service. Its role was to supplement the work of brigades at local level. In this job it was hampered severely by the incompatibility of equipment used by these different brigades — most importantly the lack of a standard size of hydrant valve. The Auxiliary Fire Service and the local brigades were superseded in August 1941 by the National Fire Service. After the war the AFS was reformed alongside the Civil Defence Corps, forming part of the UK's planned emergency response to a nuclear attack. It was disbanded in the UK in 1968.

Members of the AFS were unpaid part-time volunteers, but could be called up for whole-time paid service if necessary. This was very similar to the wartime establishment of the police Special Constabulary. Men and women could join, the latter mainly in an administrative role.

An AFS was formed in every county borough, borough and urban district, and there was also one in the London County Council area. Each AFS was commanded by a Commandant, with Deputy and/or Assistant Commandants in the larger services. The services operated their own fire stations, each commanded by a Section Officer, and station areas were divided into Fire Beats, each under the command of a Patrol Officer. Services with five or more stations divided them into Divisions, each under the command of a Divisional Officer. These ranks were not laid down by the government, and some services used different systems.

The Auxiliary Fire Service was reformed in 1948 alongside the Civil Defence Corps, starting initially with old National Fire Service equipment. However the role of the AFS was to provide mobile fire fighting columns that could be deployed to areas that had suffered a nuclear attack (it being assumed that the local fire fighting capability would most likely have been lost). The old equipment was not suitable for this task, so in the 1950s the AFS was requipped. This included 1,000 Green Goddess (Bedford RLHZ Self Propelled Pump) fire engines, Land Rovers, motorcycles and support vehicles such as pipe carriers, mobile kitchens, and foam and water carriers.

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