A Colchester firefighter, who was due to come on duty as the strike began, spoke of his feelings about the action.
The officer, who did not want to be named, said he thought firefighters would be worried about the kind of emergencies which could happen during the 48-hour strike.
He said: "I'm sure everybody's worried about that.
"Nobody wants to go on strike and everybody's worried about the sort of things that are going to happen.
"I'm disappointed that the Government hasn't come up with something better than they have.
"We've undertaken a review from an independent source ourselves and it was them that came up with the £30,000, not us.
Published Thursday November 14, 2002
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