FIGHTING fires in terraced houses and rubbish skips might not be the usual fare for the emergency services on a tiny island in the South Atlantic -- but that is just what one fireman from St Helena has been doing for the last month.

St Helena station officer Alan Thomas, 30, joined fire crews in East Lancashire for just over a month, including a stiny in Burnley, after spending 12 weeks at the Lancashire Fire and Rescue training centre in Chorley.

Alan has spent six years in the fire service in St Helena, a small British colony measuring just six miles by ten miles 1500 miles north west of Cape Town in the South Atlantic ocean.

The island, with a population of just 6000, has just one fire station and 16 fire crew who are more used to sea rescues and forest fires than urban blazes.

Last year two firefighters from Lancashire went to the island to give the crews there tuition in rope rescue techniques.

That visit followed a trip to East Lancashire by St Helena's deputy fire chief officer Derek Richards.

Burnley watch officer Nigel Clark said: "I think Alan found the time here very valuable, although I don't think they have too many terraced house fires over there. He seemed to learn a lot and said he would be taking a great deal back from his visit to St Helena.

"He was certainly busy during his time here. Apparently they only get about 140 calls a year compared to our two or three thousand."