A RETIRED fire engine that has just completed a 13-year career will start a new life in Eastern Europe.

The appliance, which was based at Wheatley Hill fire station, in east Durham, will leave for Belarus on Monday, where it will carry out a twin lifesaving role.

As well as dealing with fires in a region where there is currently one engine to cover an area the size of County Durham and Darlington, the tender will take fresh water to an area still polluted 20 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Rather then sell it for about £6,000 in this country, the fire service and trade union GMB are sending it to Belarus, which bore the brunt of the contamination after the disaster in Ukraine.

In 2003, 1,200 people, mostly children, died in house fires in Belarus, partly because of a lack of fire alarms, timber-made housing and high levels of alcoholism.

Lorry driver Peter Rutherford, from Seaham, will take the engine on the four-day journey.

A fire brigade spokeswoman said: "It has been very well looked after and is fully equipped, and while for us it may be a little outdated, for them it is state-of-the-art.

"It also holds 400 gallons of water, so the engine will be bringing in clean water supplies to the villages closest to the 60-mile exclusion zone around Chernobyl, filling up the header tanks and then returning for more, so there will be a constant water supply."

A total of 17,000 firefighters lost their lives in the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath.

The fire engine is part of a convoy of aid including medical supplies, school equipment and clothing, which will leave County Durham for Belarus on Monday.