BARROW shopworkers have been praised for donating food to feed a large group of firefighters.

Dalton residents and Cumbria firecrews have praised the staff of Bookers Wholesale in Sowerby Woods Industrial Estate, Barrow, who donated food to help feed a group of around 30 firefighters who had worked throughout the night to tackle a barn fire on Urswick Road in Dalton.

Crews from Ulverston, Barrow, Walney and Penrith were called out at 3.38am yesterday to reports of a building fire and were in attendance for more than six hours.

A Dalton resident wanted to do something to thank the fire crews so she went out to buy food for them all.

She asked staff at Booker Wholesale to let her into the store early so she could buy food for the firefighters.

However, when the manager was told what had happened he gave the food away for free.

Staff donated enough bread, bacon and butter to feed all the firefighters who had been working to extinguish the fire

Now the staff have been praised for their generosity.

Acting Fire Commander for South Cumbria, Roger Exley, has welcomed the show of support for the fire service from the community and praised those firefighters who worked tirelessly throughout the night to put out the fire.

He said: “We had a number of full time and part time firefighters in attendance at the incident.

“Full time teams are based at the stations overnight and responded to the call out, but there were also part time staff who responded to the late night call from their homes or other jobs.

“Whilst the risk to people tends to be lower with barn fires, they are often technically difficult fires to deal with and take time to be extinguished and in this case there was a warning about asbestos.

“Generally they involve a lot of hard work for the teams and people have woken up in the middle of the night and worked through until the morning to deal with the fire.

“So the fact someone has made the effort to go somewhere and get food for the teams is fantastic.

“It’s great to know people see the dedication of the firefighters and recognise what they do and reward them.”

Mr Exley went on to thank the staff at Booker Wholesale for their generosity.

He said: “The fact Bookers were willing to give the food for free shows me firefighters are still well respected.

“It is great to see the community come together like that.

“I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the staff at Bookers and the family that supported our firecrews.

“It’s great to know the public still support us.”