Firefighters across Hertfordshire will strike for six hours tonight as part of their ongoing fight against proposed pension changes.

Members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which is protesting against a government plan to change the retirement age from 55 to 60, will stop work between 6.30pm and 12.30am.

Hertfordshire FBU chairman Derek Macleod said: “This is timed to show people we are working when many people are not. On Christmas Eve the strike was solidly supported.”

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said: “Firefighters on duty over the festive period don’t have much to celebrate this year and tonight’s strikes will remind the Government of the service we provide 24 hour a day, 365 days a year, every year of our careers.

“Nobody wants these strikes but firefighters remain extremely angry over the prospect of being priced out of their pensions and facing the sack owing to the Government’s ludicrous pretence that men and women of 60 can meet the same fitness standards as 20 year olds.”