Firefighter retires from the frontline
A Chichester-based firefighter, who has served communities across West Sussex, has retired after 17 years of service.
Kevin Knight, 61, will step down as a frontline firefighter but, with years of expertise in fire prevention, will embark on a new job in community fire safety.
Kevin joined West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service in 2003, as a retained (oncall) firefighter based at Shoreham Fire Station.
Having recently branched out as an independent financial advisor, he decided he wanted to give something back to his local community and signed up to join the service.
Kevin said: “Back then I didn’t really know what a retained firefighter was, or that I could do it around my work as a financial advisor.
“But it was so different from what I was doing sat at my computer every day that it really worked for me.
“I would be sat there looking through reports, and the alerter would go off and I would be running out the
door to the fire station.”
After four years as a retained firefighter, Kevin went wholetime and served at East Grinstead, before moving to Burgess Hill in 2012, and finally ending up on White Watch in Chichester, where he has served since 2015.
“Chichester is a very interesting station to serve at,” he said. “It’s a large fireground with a real mix of rural and urban areas, so you get a real variety of calls come in.”
Over the years, Kevin has tackled more fires, attended more road traffic collisions, and carried out more home
fire safety visits than he can remember. One of his more lasting memories with the service came in Lancing in 2006, when he worked through the night to bring a field full of hay bales on fire under control after an arsonist ‘ran amok’.
Kevin will also never forget the Hastings Pier fire in 2010.
Kevin decided that it was time for a ‘slight change of pace’, bringing his years of expertise to help the service’s community fire safety team.
He said: “I have always enjoyed working in the community with people and making sure they get the help that they need.”