Pauline Holden

Pauline joined the RAF in 1985 and trained as a nurse, seeing her career take her to Germany as well as Bahrain for the 1990 Gulf War to set up a field hospital. After leaving the RAF and managing a corporate gym, Pauline wanted a more challenging career and became interested in a career as a firefighter, so applied and joined Essex County Fire and Rescue service in 2001.

After serving operationally for many years, Pauline moved to an instructor role, initially as a Breathing Apparatus and Compartment Fire Behaviour Instructor, and then into Incident Command training in 2017.

Pauline has obtained her Incident Command qualifications, assessing and IQA qualifications since joining the Incident Command team in 2017. Pauline has also completed the United States’ ICS 400 Incident Command Course with TEEX, Texas A&M University in 2018. She will be retiring from Essex County Fire and Rescue in December 2022. Pauline also gained a BA hons in Business and Management in 2010.

Pauline has an interest in human behaviour and is also a keen cyclist both in mountain biking and road cycling, however confesses to spending more of her time off the bike in a heap on the floor than on it!