WORCESTERSHIRE’S top fire officers have been called in to spearhead the major flood rescue which is underway in England’s North West.

Paul Hayden, the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Fire and Rescue Service’s chief fire officer, travelled to a flood command centre in West Yorkshire yesterday.

He and service colleague area manager Paul Amos are helping mobilise the country’s resources to support the huge rescue operation in Cumbria, after deadly floods struck.

As part of National Flood Support Team (FST), the two men are making sure emergency rescue and recovery teams have the critical equipment and advice needed to get people to safety.

A major rescue was launched led by police and involving emergency services, armed forces and specialist volunteer rescue teams after Cumbria was washed out by heavy rainfall.

Mr Amos said: “We’ve already dispatched teams and specialist rescue advisers to support the rescue effort. It is very similar to what we did in the summer floods of 2007.”

That year, Hereford and Worcester developed the national co-ordination of flood rescue operations, pioneering the use of the FST to take pressure off the frontline ‘Gold Command’ of emergency services, currently directing the rescue effort on the ground in Cumbria.

Mr Amos said: “We’ve sent swift-water rescue boat teams and experts in specialist rescue.

“There are also high volume pump units on standby including units from the two counties.” Mr Hayden sits on the Govern-ment’s flood rescue national enhancement programme and has worked in Europe and the US on multi-national civil emergency exercises. Mr Amos is the Chief Fire Officers Association’s representative on the search and rescue operations group.

The Cumbrian floods claimed their first victim yesterday after the body of “hero” police officer PC Bill Barker was found washed up on a beach, after a bridge collapse caused by the huge volume of water.

The town of Cockermouth has been worst affected, where water levels reached 2.5m (8ft 2in).

RAF helicopters helped boat teams and emergency services to rescue more than 200 people from buildings there. The area’s bad weather is expected to continue into the weekend while the Environment Agency have called the scale of the floods unprecedented.

Yesterday just one flood warning remained in place on the river Wye in Herefordshire. There are no Environment Agency flood warnings in Worcestershire.