The Minister for Emergency Services Nathan Rees has flagged taking stations “off line” as a way of dealing with “unexpected crew shortages” as opposed to paying full-time fire fighters overtime.

However, according to the NSW Fire Brigade Employees’ Union, the proposal an attempt to force the fire fighters to halt their on-going pay claim in exchange for keeping these stations open at all times.

According to Mr Rees, the temporary closures will have no adverse impact on the community’s saftey.

“In most cases these full-time units can respond at least as quickly as a ‘retained’ unit where the crew must be called in from their other jobs to respond to calls,” he said.

However, according to the country organiser for the Fire Fighters Employees’ Union Greg Mitchell, it is no coincidence the proposal has come at a time when the union is battling to get its representatives a long-range pay rise.

NSW firefighters have an interim pay rise of 2.5 per cent effective until August 26. The union is fighting for this rise to be increased by a further 2.5 per cent for the next six months with an extrafour per cent allocated every year for the next two years.

Despite the downgrading of the service these local stations offer, Mr Rees has assured union officials no NSW fire brigade stations will be permanently closed down.

Mr Mitchell said he is “very concerned” by Mr Rees’ announcement and hasn’t ruled out Orange station taking further industrial action.

Mr Mitchell said: “From what he’s told us we really don’t know where this will end and we have no idea what stations he is referring to.”

“We really are not very happy about this.”

Fire fighters will meet in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle on Friday to discuss ongoing action.