South Yorkshire firefighters have taken their most powerful piece of pumping equipment to assist emergency services battling the flooding in Cumbria.

Six firefighters travelled to the flood hit county over the weekend, taking with them a High Volume Pump (HVP). A further team of firefighters will relieve them on Monday morning (7 December).

HVPs are capable of moving huge volumes of water, and South Yorkshire’s is capable of pumping 8,000 litres of water a minute. Its first deployment has been to pump flood water back into the River Derwent in Cockermouth.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s firefighters, most of whom are normally based at Aston Park fire station, are expected to remain in Cumbria for several days.

Head of Emergency Response Phil Shillito, said: “We are pleased to be able to offer practical and strategic support to our colleagues in Cumbria.”

“The High Volume Pump is an extremely powerful piece of kit and is ideally suited to helping to deal with the quantities of water we are talking about in Cumbria right now.

“To be part of such a massive relief effort is extremely rewarding for those involved and I would like to thank them on behalf of the people that they are assisting.”

Senior officers agreed to make their resources available following a request from the National Co-ordinating Centre, after ensuring they were satisfied with the fire and rescue provision which remains available for local people in South Yorkshire.

The fire service’s tradition of sharing national assets benefited communities in Doncaster in 2007, when more than 30 HVPs from all over the country helped to pump out flooded areas around Bentley and Toll Bar.