The ten-strong team of part time firefighters look set to lose their jobs in what the county fire service has dubbed a 'service improvement plan' and 'budget re-alignment', according to union officials.

Rugby-based Warwickshire Fire Service Union (FSU) vice chairman, Steve Roberts said: "However you couch it, it's still cutbacks, and it amounts to the biggest cuts and closures plan ever proposed by a fire service.

"The plans want to close seven of the 19 county stations - cutting 100 of our retained firefighters. This will simply mean this area being left without any effective emergency rescue cover."

Brinklow Fire Station, serving the community since 1956, supports Rugby's two engines in district incidents. "If Brinklow closes, one of the Rugby engines will have to serve the area stretching as far away as Binley, Wolston and Withybrook - it's a large rural area, and Rugby only has two engines. So if there's a major incident in Rugby, we will have to rely on support from Nuneaton or Southam, both of which will take longer to attend than Brinklow."

Christian McTurk, FSU rep at the Brinklow site, said: "We serve a large rural area, where our knowledge of the local topography is extremely useful in attending incidents swiftly. And, we support Rugby. I understand that the Brinklow station is one of the cheapest in the county to run. We do our job more for love than money, and to serve the local community. Serving as a retained firefighter affects family life and we have all made sacrifices at one time or another to ensure the community has a fire service. Now it looks that the service is being taken away."

Mr. Roberts, a firefighter at the Rugby station, said: "We urge all members of the community to oppose these proposed cuts by taking part in the consultation process."

Paul Fuller, Warwickshire's Chief Fire Officer, speaking about the changes, said: "We intend to implement a plan to improve the distribution of our network of stations and fire engines to better reflect risk and demands in the 21st century. We will need to relocate a number of our fire engines to match patterns of demand, as well as improving availability, increasing firefighter training and community fire safety activity.

Mr. Fuller explained that although fire appliances are available at retiained they can't always be used due to insufficient crewing, as it is more difficult to recruit retained firefighters, due to the number of hours they are required to commit in addition to their day job. "This is also why some stations are closed for around one-third of the time at the most needed time of the day."

He said the Audit Commission is demanding the fire service moves faster in its drive for modernisation and deliver "better value for money through more efficient and effective service delivery and use of resources."

And while the union suggests it will strongly oppose any downgrading or reduction of frontline services, Mr Roberts said negotiation will only take place after the consultation period, and that striking would be "a long way off, and a last resort."