FIREFIGHTERS walked out on strike again across North and East Yorkshire today, following the dramatic collapse of a last-minute pay deal.

The potentially life-threatening impact of their eight-day action was illustrated only hours earlier in York when a teenager was rescued from the River Ouse by firefighters and police.

It emerged that RAF personnel would not be able to use a rescue boat like the one based at York fire station if anyone else fell in the river over the next eight days.

York Fire Station Officer Mal Austwick said: "The Army does not have anything like this river rescue facility. As far as I know, there will be no emergency cover on the river during the strike." The RAF confirmed it did not have access to a rescue boat.

Police said their underwater search unit boat would be available if needed during the strike, but there would be no extra staffing provision and it could not be deployed as quickly as the fire service craft.

The river rescue happened near Lendal Bridge at 3.30 am today after a man was seen in the river close to the steep bank on the Norwich Union side.

Three police officers, Jane Thompson, James Jones and Scott Nixon, spotted him floating in the water and used a rope to climb down the precarious bank to reach him. They were joined by firefighters who helped to pull him out.

Paramedics then revived the man, who had stopped breathing, and took him to York District Hospital where he was believed to be in a stable condition.

"The man was extremely cold and unconscious when we got him out," said Station Officer Austwick, who added that the man - aged 18 or 19 - was thought to have been under the influence of drink.

"Our boat crew was about to launch from the back of the station but weren't needed in the end."

York firefighters were busy only hours before the river rescue tackling a blaze in a block of flats.

The fire started in Cemetery Road last night when a plant pot caught fire after a joss stick was left unattended.

Residents were evacuated and firefighters used a bucket of water to extinguish the small blaze, which caused minor smoke damage to a flat.

The RAF, with its fleet of nine ageing Green Goddess fire tenders, took over responsibility for fighting fires again at 9am when the eight-day strike started.

Updated: 11:37 Friday, November 22, 2002