The record
Cleveland Fire Brigade covers the four Teesside boroughs of Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees. It began life as Teesside County Fire Brigade in April 1968, became Cleveland County Fire Brigade on local-government reorganisation in 1974 and took its present name in 1996. Its patch mixes dense petrochemical and dock industry along the Tees with river, coast and the northern edge of the North York Moors, so alongside its pumping appliances the brigade has long maintained specialist rescue units — including the rope ('line') rescue and water rescue capability that the Land Rover in this record supports.
NX05 FVA is a 2005 (05-plate) Defender 130 crew cab fitted with a fabricated rescue box body: a full-height locker section with an aluminium roller shutter over the rear, a raised forward canopy, a roof-mounted light bar and a snorkel air intake. It wears the brigade's red livery with yellow high-visibility panelling and the Cleveland Fire Brigade crest on the cab doors, with LINE RESCUE lettered along the box. The 130 wheelbase and the Td5 engine of that period gave the brigade a compact appliance that could reach cliff, quarry, riverbank and mudflat incidents that a full-size pump could not, while carrying rope systems, stretchers and a crew.
Photographs of the vehicle place it at Coulby Newham fire station in Middlesbrough. It has also been documented in a water-rescue role, towing an inflatable rescue boat and carrying a roll-out mat for recovering casualties from the water — the brigade has used the same chassis for both specialisms over the vehicle's life. The Defender's precise current disposal is not documented in the sources consulted; as a 2005 vehicle it is likely to have been replaced in front-line service, and its present status should be treated as unconfirmed.
