Strike talks take a step forward as firefighters honour colleague

Hopes of averting a national strike by firefighters were raised slightly last night after talks broke up with both sides claiming some progress had been made.

Andy Gilchrist, the General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, left the talks claiming the chances of a strike next week were "evenly balanced".

He said the talks had been held in a "constructive atmosphere" and the union would consider its position over the weekend. The union is still planning to press ahead with a strike on 6 November, the day after bonfire night, and has rejected a four per cent pay offer.

No firm offer is believed to have been made to the union, which wants a 40 per cent pay rise to increase salaries to £30,000. Negotiators admitted after the talks that they felt "optimistic". The two sides have held 18 hours of meetings over the past two days.

. The negotiations in London started with one minute's silence for Bob Miller, a 44-year-old fireman, who had two children, who died while on duty. At 6pm yesterday, .the members of White Watch at Leicester's eastern fire station were returning to duty. Only 18 hours earlier, their colleague and friend Mr Miller had lost his life trying to extinguish a fire at a disused hosiery factory.

They said his death would "rip the heart" out of the team, but were still reporting for duty to perform a job that for firefighters such as Mr Miller is worth £21,000 a year.

He is the 41st firefighter to be killed at the scene of a fire in England and Wales since the last national strike in 1977, and the 33rd to die on duty in Britain since 1990. Mr Miller's colleagues in Leicester refused to comment on the pay dispute yesterday, saying they wanted to remember a man whose enthusiasm about firefighting was as strong as when he joined the service as an 18-year-old. But the death of an experienced man whom colleagues said they trusted with their lives, highlighted the dangers they face.

Mr Miller, whose father was a firefighter,had been commended twice in his career, once for rescuing three people from a fire and once for saving a 17-year-old from a river. He was described as a father figure for younger firefighters and his friend, Sub-officer Mark Smith, said yesterday that if any members of White Watch got into trouble, they wanted to be with Mr Miller. "It will rip the heart out of the Watch but we will carry on because that's what Bob deserves," Mr Smith said.

Mr Miller's wife, Jane, and her two teenage sons were too upset to speak publicly yesterday. His colleagues said he was a "tremendous father" who played and coached rugby at South Leicester rugby club and was a black belt in tae kwon do. He was a fund raiser for the Firefighters Benevolent Fund and organised charity events at his station.

Mr Miller was a member of the FBU and if this week's strikes had gone ahead, White Watch would not have been at work when the call came through at 2.40am yesterday. He and Mr Smith joined 90 firefighters at the three-storey hosiery factory where flames were billowing out.

The derelict factory is often used by homeless people and drug addicts and the team thought there might be people inside. Mr Miller and a partner were one of three two-man teams that went to look.