Fellow firefighters raise nearly £15,000 for family of dad-of-four Dan Lee found dead after going missing

A fundraising page has been set up for the family of a firefighter who was tragically found dead four days after he went missing after a watch night out in the city centre.

Former Royal Marine Commando Dan Lee, 41, had worked for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue service for 16 years, rising through the ranks to become a watch manager with Green Watch at Agecroft Fire Station. After a night out with his colleagues, the popular and well-respected senior fire officer was reported missing in the early hours of Monday morning, August 22.

Emergency services and members of the public searched for him for four days, with his family putting out an emotional appeal on his daughter’s sixth birthday to get him home. Tragically, Dan’s body was found in the River Irwell four days later, on Thursday, August 25. Now, Dan’s fire service colleagues have set up a fundraiser to cover the funeral costs, and to help his family deal with the financial pressures of losing their loved one.

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David Minto, one of Dan's friends and colleagues, told the Manchester Evening News they wanted to try and make the situation slightly easier for the family by removing the worry of funeral costs. He said: “People always say someone’s popular after something like this but Daniel really was, the amount of phone calls and messages we’ve had, he was an extremely popular member of the service.

“His daytime job was watch manager with Green watch but on the side at night he was a drone pilot so Daniel was exposed to a number of people across the service and the whole service is in mourning, that’s no exaggeration, there’s a lot of people that are missing him.

“We set