MEDIA STATEMENT - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 7 July 2010

Reduced Fire Service response initially sent to University blaze

On the 29th April 2010  the New Zealand Fire Service reduced responses of fire appliances and Firefighters to many Sprinklered Buildings throughout NZ, their justification for doing so was Sprinklered Buildings don’t pose any great risks to those living, working in them or to Firefighters  called in the event of fire.

The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union and operational Firefighters strongly opposed this move labelling it arrogant, short sighted and dangerous.

It was always going to be a matter of when, not if, this new Fire Service policy would endanger the lives of the public and Firefighters alike and put at greater risk those properties.

At today’s incident only 2 fire appliances initially responded with 8 Firefighters (down from 4 fire appliances plus 2 aerial appliances 2 months ago) as per the new Fire Service instruction. On arrival at the incident a fire was discovered,  the incident was made up to a 2nd alarm and then a 3rd alarm calling for more manpower.

This fire was on the 8th floor of a student accommodation building, the sprinkler system failed to operate, this placed any persons in this building at significant risk.

There were some considerable delays in getting sufficient numbers of Firefighters to the scene to deal with this fire as required by various other Fire Service procedures.

Firefighters extinguished the fire with low pressure hose.

At this fire people were on the 9th & 10th floors above the fire.

It is very fortunate that this is holiday time at the University otherwise we could have easily being looking at a tragedy. 

Issues with the Fire Service policy which the NZPFU has raised with them was it was implemented without consultation with operational Firefighters, the risk assessments of sprinklered buildings as required by the policy were in most cases not carried out, the resulting change in policy was in many places including Auckland a blanket reduction in the response of fire appliances to such buildings.

Benefits the Fire Service claimed were sending less fire appliances would result in less traffic congestion and less disruption to local business. It also was designed to reduce the risk of traffic incidents enroute to these buildings, despite the NZPFU asking for proof, no evidence was ever provided by the NZFS to substantiate these were genuine issues.

Even if there has been a fire in a sprinklered building and it is controlled there is still the very real risk of issues surrounding huge volumes of smoke (as occurred in today’s fire) which kills people, huge amounts of water damage from the operating sprinkler/s, these issues themselves dictate that in many buildings the initial response of 2 fire appliances and 8 Firefighters won’t be enough.

The Fire Service claim Firefighters arriving on a scene finding a fire can call for more resources, that’s true but in many cases there will be significant delays in getting them there, at least if they are responding on the initial alarm they will be well enroute if a fire is found.

There are many more worrying aspects to this policy than the operation of a sprinkler, the reduced responses apply to buildings where a smoke detector may have detected a fire but there is a sprinkler system in the building, in this scenario the Fire Service will still only send 2 fire appliances, this  afternoons fire is a perfect example of the application of a flawed policy, the Fire Service were alerted to this fire by the operation of a manual call point.

The NZPFU is aware of another incident in a Auckland Queen Street building in the early hours of this morning which had similar disturbing circumstances, again on the 8th floor, people sleeping in the building and the sprinkler system did not operate. It was only through the local knowledge of the Officer in Charge that enough Firefighters were subsequently dispatched to provide an adequate response to deal with this fire, again significant delays were experienced in firefighting operations. 

The outcome is this Fire Service policy is a failure, it is dangerous for the public and it is dangerous for Firefighters.

This policy delays the response of sufficient numbers of Firefighters to deal with such fires quickly and safely.

The NZPFU will not be surprised if the Fire Service take no action to ensure Firefighters and the NZPFU’s concerns are addressed after these incidents, this will further demonstrate the contempt they have for the public and Firefighters alike.

This contempt has been demonstrated towards Firefighters since the introduction of this policy where our members have increased responses to certain incidents based on their operational experience, this has resulted in many Officers being sent letters from Management asking them to explain the deviation from the policy threatening that if breaches of policy continue the Officers will be formally disciplined, this is the approach by Management towards our members who are attempting to ensure public and Firefighter safety is maintained.

The NZPFU are aware that the Fire Service are confidentially reviewing their new policy and reduced fire appliance responses to hospitals and rest homes, hopefully a commonsense approach will be taken and fire appliance responses will be reinstated to that prior 29th April.

In an interview on Radio Live, dated 21st July NZFS Assistant National Commander Bill Butzbach in response to this question “Can you guarantee the fire service won’t be compromised by this move?” replied ABSOLUTELY.

Firefighters know that’s not the case, it has proven itself.

The NZPFU again require that ours and the concerns of our members be addressed and that fire appliance responses to sprinklered buildings be reinstated to the levels prior to 29th April 2010 and to enter into meaningful consultation with the NZPFU and Firefighters to determine what their operational requirements are to initially deal with incidents in any given building. This has been made that much more difficult when our representatives in Auckland have to resort to using the Official Information Act in an attempt to determine what those affected buildings are prior to them arriving at an incident and not having enough resources.

It’s unfair that the public get to pay the price of such a backwards dangerous Fire Service policy, Firefighters are confident that’s not what they want from their Fire Service.

Firefighters don’t want to be in the position down the track of saying “told you so” after the event.

ENDS.

© Scoop Media