The Chief Fire Officer (CFO) of West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) is set to prove he has a head for heights – in a bid to raise funds for two good causes

Vij Randeniya OBE will be walking up Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales, on Wednesday 21 April. He’ll be scaling the 1,085 metre mountain wearing WMFS’ new state-of-the-art breathing apparatus set, the Drager PSS 7000, fully ‘under air’ as he attempts the climb.

“When it was first suggested to me, I thought it was a mad idea,” says Vij, “It sounded like a lot of hard work, and I wasn’t sure if it was something I should be doing. Certainly, it’s going to be tough, but I’m convinced I can do it.

“I’ve been training every day to get myself into the right shape to take on the challenge. The fact that I’m going fully ‘under air’ makes scaling Snowdon considerably more difficult for me – but the new breathing apparatus set will help keep our firefighters safer when they are working in testing situations.”

Vij will be raising money for the Firefighters Charity and Help for Heroes, as well as officially ‘launching’ the new breathing apparatus set in the West Midlands.

“We are the first fire service in the country to have this new breathing equipment, and it will be rolled out nationally in the near future. Firefighters throughout the West Midlands are going to be using it, so, as the CFO, I need to demonstrate that the set really does work. I genuinely believe that this equipment is a major leap forward and will help us be more effective when we tackle fires and face other challenging situations.”

During the course of his climb, Vij is expected to use 20 cylinders of air – with each 3,000 litre cylinder expected to last around 15 minutes. He’ll be accompanied on the climb by a team of colleagues from WMFS and the WMFS Young Firefighters Association (YFA).

“Working for the Fire Service is a team effort day-in, day-out. By completing the Snowdon challenge, I hope that we’ll be able to show that we have an excellent team at WMFS, and raise lots of money for charity in the process.”

If you’d like to support the chief’s fundraising efforts, please visit the following websites:

www.justgiving.com/WestMidlandsFireServiceSnowdonClimb-FirefightersCharity to support Firefighters Charity
or
www.justgiving.com/WestMidlandsFireServiceSnowdonClimb-HelpforHeroes to support Help for Heroes

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