Fire-fighting rock band The Backdrafts hope for Britain’s Got Talent appearance

Norfolk Fire Service band The Backdrafts prepare for their preliminary Britain's Got Talent audition in London (Image: Submitted)

The five-piece, who perform in full fire-fighting gear and sing songs with safety messages, travelled to London along with thousands of other performers hoping to appear on the ITV talent show.

After breezing through the first round of auditions, they played an acoustic version of their self-penned rock n' roll safety anthem 'Smoke Detector Blues' in front of the show's producers and a video team.

They will find out in February if that second-round audition has been successful, and whether they have made it to the televised phase of the contest where they could brave the buzzers of celebrity judges Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden.

Drummer Scott Field said any national exposure could boost the band's ambitions of raising money for the Fire Fighters' Charity, while spreading the word about the importance of testing smoke alarms.

He said: 'We got through to the round where they video you as you audition in front of the producers, and from the look on the judges' faces I could tell that they loved it. So, watch this space.

'We've gone down there and done a proper job. If we can get on just one live show, that's all we need. It is quite exciting.

'There were a lot of singers there who were amazing, but they were just singers. If you're in a band, you've got no chance unless you have something that's a bit different.

'We were very welcomed by everybody. A lot of people wanted to know if we were real firefighters.'

Three of the band are based at Dereham Fire Station as part of the county's urban search and rescue team: Scott Field on drums; Duncan Barrow on backing vocals and keyboards; and James Little on lead guitar. Bassist Dave Pleszko is based at Thetford while frontman Andy Heginbotham is a group manager at Norfolk Fire and Rescue service HQ.