Mohammed Abdulkarim remembers clearly the first time he was called out as a British Red Cross emergency response volunteer four years ago. A fire, thought to have been started by a discarded cigarette, ripped through a seven-storey student accommodation block in Bolton within minutes. All 217 students were safely rescued from the blaze thanks to 200 firefighters and fire engines from across the region.
It was up to Abdulkarim and his trained British Red Cross team to run the emergency centre set up in the borough, which is part of Greater Manchester, to support students made homeless by the fire. “The entire building had burnt down and the whole of the area had to be evacuated,” he says. “I was based in the rest centre where a flow of people were coming in and dropping off clothes and hygiene packs as well as making donations.” He gave whatever help was needed. “Sometimes that meant just sitting down and listening to somebody who needed to talk.”
