The Newmarket pony groom ready to fight wildfires at short notice

At about 06:30 on 30 July, Jenny Olley received an alert waking her up. It was a deployment to a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, Suffolk.

Within five minutes of the pager sounding, on-call firefighters have to get out of bed, get dressed, and race to their nearest station.

Like almost two-thirds of Suffolk’s firefighters, Olley, 35, works part-time, springing into action at a moment’s notice.

“I’m loving every moment of it,” she said.

Olley, who works with polo ponies by day in Newmarket, had been at Bury St Edmunds fire station until the early hours of the morning, aware that other crews were already at Dunwich Heath.

At its peak, the fire was the size of 210 football fields, engulfing hundreds of acres of internationally protected heathland.

“When we turned up to Dunwich originally, you could see the smoke from miles away,” Olley said.

“Normally, you don’t see the smoke from that far. We thought it must be around the corner, and we were still driving half an hour later.”