Fire Guards Training at Bedford Square

A group of volunteers at Bedford Square practice extinguishing fires with a stirrup pump, though some even find the overalls a bit of a struggle

Fire Guards were volunteers recruited to operate in the vicinity of their own home and street and were formed into small teams of 3 to 5 persons and trained to tackle small fires caused by incendiary bombs or to extinguish the incendiary bomb itself using water supplied by a stirrup pump. Unlike an official goverment film, this amateur film lets us see the men joking about before getting on with the training - extinguishing smoke bombs and controlled fires.

This film is from the collection of Hillingdon Local Studies, Archives and Museum Service, a member of the London's Screen Archives Network.