DORSET Fire & Rescue Service (DFRS) responded to 15 emergency 999 calls during the latest firefighter strike.

The 24-hour walkout, backed by Fire Brigades Union (FBU) members in response to their continued pensions row with government, ended this morning at 7am.

A dozen of the calls attended by fire crews during the duration of the strike turned out to be false alarms, a DFRS spokesman confirmed.

Of the remaining three ‘shouts’ one was a call for first-responder medical assistance in support of the ambulance service.

Another was a gas leak caused by a faulty boiler at a property in Furzehill, while the last 999 call for assistance was to rescue an elderly woman who had become trapped in her own car.

This week’s strike was the fourteenth round of industrial action organised by the FBU since September 2013.

FBU chiefs and the government remain at loggerheads over the firefighter pension issue.