Hungerford is an on-call fire station which is fully staffed by local people. It has one operational fire engine together with another appliance used by the Fire Cadets programme for children aged 12 to 16 years old. Firefighters from Hungerford are often busy due to the station’s location near to the M4 and county borders with Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Firefighters have been serving Hungerford since 1891, when the town welcomed the formation of a volunteer fire brigade.
Their initial home was at The Tannery, before a new station was built in Charnham Street in 1893. In July 1938, the Government created the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) to bolster wartime firefighting efforts, with Hungerford represented in Barr’s Yard. The AFS was taken over by the National Fire Service (NFS) in 1941.
Three years after the war, the NFS was split into county-based fire services and Hungerford’s service became part of the Berkshire Fire Service.
The growing size of standard fire engines created a pressing need for a larger fire station in the years after the war, and the opportunity was taken to build a modern station on part of the Great Western Mill site within the town. The current home of Hungerford Fire Station in Church Street was built in 1968.
In 2017 Hungerford Fire Station had a major refurbishment which saw it become Royal Berkshire’s first community tri-service station, providing shared facilities for Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Thames Valley Police and South Central Ambulance Service.
There is a Community Room available for members of the public to book at Hungerford Community Fire Station. To book it, please complete a booking form, which can be found at: https://www.rbfrs.co.uk/your-service/fire-stations/community-rooms/