The Fire Brigades Union is to ballot its members over the proposal to stage their pay increase.

Both the FBU executive and local government employers met separately on Monday, in the face of potential strikes over the issue.

The union has called on employers to pay an agreed seven per cent pay rise in one go, warning that plans to deliver it in two instalments are "unacceptable".

But employers say that until the service begins modernising they will pay 3.5 per cent from November 7 2003, with the remaining 3.5 per cent to follow at a later date.

Wildcat industrial action last week brought the fire service back to the brink of a full scale strike.

An estimated 35 of the UK's 56 brigades were on a work to rule protest last Wednesday - bonfire night - answering only 999 calls.