SkyCity Convention Centre fire: Women firefighters all together at once 'extremely rare'

Thursday, 24 October 2019

Firefighters subdue the SkyCity convention centre blaze in October 2019.

There aren't many positive outcomes from a fire as devastating as the one currently burning at the SkyCity Convention Centre.

But for career firefighter of 24 years Nicky Lafferty, working alongside more female firefighters than ever is 'pretty awesome'.

'I was on the incident ground with the most female firefighters I have ever worked with, all at the same job together,' she said in a post on the Fire and Emergency NZ Facebook page.

Career firefighter Nicky Lafferty says she has never worked with so many women firefighters at a single event.

'We all work in different parts of Auckland so it was pretty awesome to all be working together.'

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Lafferty said it was 'extremely rare' for so many female firefighters to be working together at a single incident.

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Lafferty described it as 'an extremely rare event' to have so many women firefighters together at once.

The women all work in different parts of Auckland.

The fire has been burning since about 1.10pm on Tuesday.

On Thursday afternoon, FENZ area commander Murray Binning said the fire was in the 'recovery phase', which involved crews locating and extinguishing hot spots on the roof and inside the building.

He said they were looking to reduce the cordons around the building by opening lanes after several days of major traffic congestion in the CBD.

Binning said FENZ was working with Auckland Transport to determine when this would happen.

It was likely cordons immediately around the building on Wellesley, Nelson and Hobson streets would continue.