For as long as he can remember, fire fighting was all Richard Moxon ever wanted to do.

His father fought fires during the 1939-45 world war and his mother was also employed in the fire service - as a cook.

And even when his father was forced into an early retirement, following serious injury in a chemical explosion, he remained undeterred in his resolve to join the fire brigade.

But now, after serving as Commander of Rawdon Fire Station for more than a decade, Mr Moxon is bringing to an end a career in the fire service that has spanned 30 years.

And on Saturday, July 28 he will conduct his last official engagement at Rawdon when the crews hold a car boot sale to raise money for station funds.

Mr Moxon has been in charge of Rawdon Fire Station for the last 12 years. He and his crews are responsible for an area covering 13.5 square miles, taking in 33,000 people and 13,250 houses across Aireborough- and also providing support for neighbouring fire stations.

In his time he has dealt with thousands of blazes, many ending tragically.

He said: "A fire-fighter has to be prepared to deal with many emotions on a daily basis, the distress of witnessing a death can be followed almost immediately by the joy of saving a life.

"You build up a resistance when you see it all the time I must have dealt with 50 deaths and, although it's difficult, you have a job to do and it won't help anyone if you get emotional.

"At the time you just get on with your job and do what you have to do. It's later, when you get back to the station and sit down, that you start to think.

"When dealing with adults it's a little easier but when children are involved it hits you hard."

It is not all tragedy though, Mr Moxon said: "The feeling you get when you have saved someone's life is fantastic. The look in someone's eyes who has just been rescued, even the most hardened would find hard to forget."

And there are of course a few of the more bizarre emergency call outs that occur from time to time- such as the naked man who had to be released from his kitchen sink.

"Once, we were called out to a house to rescue a man who had got himself trapped. When we got there we found him sat in his kitchen sink completely naked and unable to free himself.

"He had sat in it for reasons best known to himself and had become firmly wedged in by the taps, which had jammed into his back.

"I think he was highly embarrassed when a load of firemen turned up with all their equipment - but what could he do?

"We did not have too much trouble prizing him out, and, save for a red face and a sore back he was fine, so we left and thought nothing more of it."

But then, a couple of days later the crew was talking to a separate watch.

"They started telling us about being called out to this man who'd got himself stuck in his kitchen sink.

"We thought that it was too much of a coincidence and asked them where he lived.

"When they told us, we couldn't believe it, it was the same man!

"We explained to them that we had extracted him from his sink the day before -luckily he had kept his clothes on this time.

"It turned out that he had been showing a friend what had happened to him the day before and when he climbed into the sink, he had got stuck again!"

In his 30 years, Mr Moxon has seen extensive changes in the operation of the fire service.

Advances in equipment and technology have vastly improved the ability of front line fire fighters to deal with incidents efficiently and effectively.

And computer technology has transformed the methods by which information of an emergency is distributed to relevant stations.

"The whole of the West Yorkshire Fire Service is now controlled from Birkenshaw," said Mr Moxon.

"When an emergency call comes in, all possible information is input onto the system which simultaneously finds which fire stations are responsible for the area and checks where the crews are - they may either already be out dealing with a fire, on training or educational visits or in the station.

"It also sets off the alarm bells in the station and prints a fire report, which the crews simply tear off and go."

He added: "The report gives fire fighters much more detailed information regarding an incident, including a risk assessment alerting them to potential hazards that they might encounter, even an A-Z grid reference is provided so that the address can be found quicker."

This is a far cry from how things used to be, Mr Moxon explained:

"An emergency call would come through to Leeds. The operator would write down the address or road name. After looking it up on a wheel of index cards, which would tell them which fire station was responsible for that area, they would then have to phone that fire station.

"At the station there would be someone who would be sat at the phone 24 hours a day waiting, amid general administrative work for the calls to come in. He would have to write down the details, set the bells off, then go down and hand the slips of paper to the drivers."

Unfortunately the ever increasing volume of traffic on our roads, and consequently the growing number of traffic control measures necessary, all but cancel out the time gained by these technological advances and severely hampers the fire service's efforts to improve response times.

Mr Moxon added improvements in the equipment used by today's fire fighters provided better safety for the men in the front line: "We used to wear the old waist length tunics with an upright collar, a leather helmet and plastic trousers, but a man died some years ago when the plastic in his trousers caught fire and melted so they had to develop better gear.

"Now, the clothing we use is fire retardant and tested up to 600c which is pretty hot. The newer helmets are much like crash helmets and also give far better protection than the old ones.

"And the breathing apparatus has improved too. At first most of it was on pure oxygen, now it's compressed air and although I am not aware of any accidents, tanks are protected with fire retardant material."

The law has also forced many changes in the way things are done in the Fire Service today. One area that these changes are apparent are the methods employed in the training of fire fighters.

Mr Moxon continued: "When I was training, often when a building was due to be demolished they would send fire to it and send us in as a training exercise.

It was very good training, as you have to learn to deal with an unpredictable and very real situation.

"Today with increasingly tight Health and Safety regulations you cannot do that because you can't put anyone at risk. In an actual fire it's a different situation but in training it has to be controlled.

"It's very difficult in this line of work because the very nature of it is unpredictable and dangerous. But I understand at the same time, with today's laws, that you have to guarantee the safety of your employees, even when you are training them for exactly the opposite of that."

Mr Moxon, who lives in Guiseley, is married and has two grown-up children. Over the years he has served at many of the fire stations in the region, including Bramley, Gipton, Pudsey, Fire Service HQ and finally at Rawdon.

At the end of the month he will move on to a fresh challenge and is now looking forward to using the extensive skills and knowledge accumulated over the last 30 years, possibly by providing risk assessment or health and safety advice to businesses.

l The car boot sale in aid of station funds is at Rawdon Fire Station on Saturday, July 28 from 8am to 1pm.