This is the team of serving and retired firefighters helping to save lives in Russia with a vital shipment of equipment.

Chris Holgate, 62, of Worthing, has assembled the team from West Sussex fire brigade to ship modern kit to Kursk, a city about 500 miles south of Moscow where firefighters are working with obsolete gear.

They will also be ferrying four Dennis fire engines overland across the former Soviet Union.

The Argus first reported on the expedition last month, when Mr Holgate, who served with West Sussex fire brigade between 1961 and 1988, came up with ambitious plan.

He decided to help Kursk after a teacher from the region visited Worthing in 2000, which led to an exchange trip a year later. While in Russia he saw the problems the firefighters faced.

Mr Holgate said: "Their drivers are also the mechanics and they spend more time under the vehicles trying to keep them working than driving them."

Mr Holgate has enlisted the support of fellow former firefighter Alan Dixon, and serving officers Tim Eady and Sean Bradley.

Fire boots, firefighting suits, gas and chemical protection suits plus resuscitators, radiation meters, helmets and vehicle spares will be going out in the container.

The four tenders, although a decade old, have been properly maintained and are far superior to the Russian vehicles.