Provost Jim Leishman visits Paraguay with IFRA charity

The Dunfermline Central councillor is part of a contingent from the International Fire and Rescue Association Scotland who have headed to South America for their 82nd training mission.

Led by the charity's director David Kay OBE, from Dunfermline, the team also includes instructors Jake Anderson, Liam Burnett and Scott Smith who will spend two weeks training the Junta Nacional de Cuerpo de Bomberos Voluntaries del Paraguay (JNCBVP).

Jim Leishman with the IFRA volunteers as they head out to Paraguay. (Image: Contributed)

David explained: "Jim has been a massive supporter of IFRA and has helped with two training missions where IFRA brought firefighters to Scotland from Paraguay and other countries.

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"Jim was invited by the Paraguayans - at no cost to either Fife Council or IFRA - to do a visual audit of the work IFRA has carried out in South America.

"It is a great honour for IFRA to have Jim checking out the value of the donations and training IFRA and its supporters have made to the volunteer fire and rescue services in Paraguay.

"This mission will be focusing on hot fire training, road traffic collision training and breathing apparatus training."

The charity has been operating since 2002 and, by last summer, they had sent 110 firefighting vehicles to 24 countries, packaged 80 containers full of life-saving equipment and undertaken 77 missions to assist the volunteers in these countries and pass on best practice.