Green Goddess fire engines manned by Ministry of Defence staff could be on the roads in Cumbria if the fire brigade union votes for strike action.

Firefighters all over Britain are pressing their employers for a pay rise, which would bring their basic pay from around £21,000 to £30,000.

The rise would add a further £4.5 million to the county's £10 million fire service wage bill.

Hundreds of Cumbrian firefighters took part in a demonstration in London earlier this week outside offices where negotiations were taking place between leaders of the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) and the National Fire Service Employers.

But those talks broke down without agreement and the FBU has said it will recommend at a meeting next Thursday (September 12) that members take national strike action.

Andy Gilchrist, general secretary of the FBU, said: " Not only have our employers missed an opportunity to increase the pay of professional fire-fighters, and emergency control room staff, they have also refused to say how much we are worth and have therefore set the wheels in motion towards the second national strike in the history of the UK fire service."

The union blamed the Government for interfering in negotiations with the employers and rounded on Prime Minister Tony Blair for saying during a press conference in his Sedgefield constituency on Tuesday that the £30,000 pay claim was "unrealistic", and that the 40 per cent pay claim would cause "terrible damage to the rest of the economy".

Mr Gilchrist said the rise would only cost British households 41 pence a week and that it was "utter rubbish" that the claim would damage the economy, particularly as the Government appeared to be gearing up to wage a war on Iraq which would cost billions of pounds.

Dave Keevil, senior divisional officer in Cumbria, said he hoped that a deal could be reached before industrial action, but added that Government was drawing up contingency plans to mobilise the Army's fleet of Green Goddess fire engines and other MOD vehicles and staff to give emergency cover in the event of industrial action.

He said "From a county perspective we have 38 fire stations.

Five of these are crewed by full-time personnel at Kendal, Barrow, Carlisle, Whitehaven and Workington.

The other 33 are crewed by retained personnel - we are likely to see Green Goddesses and MOD personnel providing fire cover in the full-time station areas only."

Mr Keevil said Cumbria was "very reliant on retained fire-fighters" because of the sparse rural nature of the county.

But he pointed out that if the union decided to take industrial action which involved offering emergency cover,

90 per cent of the county's fire services would be unchanged because retained fire-fighters generally provided cover on an emergency basis.