Our emergency services are some of the most heroic people possible- so surely now is the time to fund them properly.

The horrendous fire in Wennington and the many other fires that broke out across London due to the extreme heat this week have now highlighted the vital need to fund our emergency services properly.

The London Fire Brigade has stated that Tuesday 19 of July was their worse day since the Second World War. With the Metropolitan Police supporting their bluelight colleagues by working hand in hand with them, they have both seen the most stressful conditions imaginable.

The fires have once again highlighted the vital need for the capital and the country to have a properly funded emergency service sector.

Our firefighters worked through the most horrific conditions you can imagine on Tuesday. They went from fire to fire with no respite whatsoever. Their day began with a fire in the early hours of the morning when a flat fire struck. East Area police officers were first on scene and evacuated over 60 people, placing them in safe conditions. Not only were these officers brave but five also suffered smoke inhalation as a result. The residents who found themselves with no where to go, were then placed at Hornchurch police station.

Firefighters were still at the scene of that fire at 6am in the morning making sure that the fire was completely extinguished. As this incident was finished, we were informed that a fire had broken out on Pea Lane in Upminster on an area of grassland. This went on to see nearly 200 firefighters tackle the blaze and 30 fire engines. Fortunately nobody was injured.

Once again as this fire was put out, the awful news were reported that a fire in Wennington had then broken out.

This fire we now know has been one of the worse our borough has ever seen.

A major incident was declared across the capital and our fighters continued to tackle this blaze for hours that sadly has caused so much destruction to our community.

We were then told that a fire had also then broken out in nearby Dagenham that had destroyed many properties.

By ten o clock at night, Dagenham and Wennington were still burning with residents seeing a skyline of fire.

Yet here were our firefighters wearing extremely heavy kits, still tackling incredible blazes. Here were our police officers standing next to road closures all day long in temperatures of 39c to support their colleagues and the community.

Our firefighters and police officers were exhausted, de-hydrated and extremely tired. They were also emotionally wiped out as they saw the destruction done to their community and had to face the horrendous task of telling residents that their properties were gone.

Unless you experienced what these officers did throughout this day, you cannot under any circumstances criticise them.

These were unprecedented conditions that saw just how brave our emergency service workers are.

So the key question-why do we not fund them properly? Why do we get to the stage where there are not enough fire appliances to answer 999 calls across London?

Critics of our emergency services have complained that they should have had a plan. Well you can have the best plan in the world but if you have had years and I repeat years of endless cuts, even the best plan does not work when you run out of fire engines or police officers which is the case across London.

As nice as it may have been for our heroic firefighters to have had a visit from the Home Secretary yesterday (Thursday 21 July) perhaps what they may appreciate is that they have enough equipment and fire engines to be able to deal with situations such as we have seen.

Our police officers are currently working 24 hours a day, yes that is correct 24 hours a day to support our firefighters and the community during these unimaginable times. They desperately need to be funded properly and not have pay increases that come out of their own savings that clearly mean guess what-more cut backs.

Now is the time to support these brave men and women who support us during the hardest times and fund our emergency services properly once and for all.