SkyCity Convention Centre fire: How firefighters fought and managed the Auckland blaze

Saturday, 26 October 2019

Timelapse video by NIWA of the first 44 hours of fighting the fire.

In the space of an hour, veteran firefighter Dave Woon went from enjoying his wife's birthday lunch to leading the battle against the SkyCity Convention Centre fire.

But that's just the way he likes it.

'I work in an office. I'm a manager by day and a commander by night, and I know what I'd prefer to be doing and that's commanding,' he said.

Dave Woon paid tribute to the bravery and hard work of his crews, including those who spent long and freezing shifts manning aerial appliances.

The visibly weary Fire and Emergency assistant area commander appeared grateful for a few minutes rest during his fourth shift at the central Auckland fire site, as he described to Stuff the frenetic minutes after the blaze started on Tuesday afternoon.

**READ MORE:

Tired and weary during his fourth shift in charge at the SkyCity fire is assistant area commander Dave Woon.

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Fire crews battle the blaze at Auckland's SkyCity convention centre on Wednesday.

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Not long after the SkyCity Auckland Convention Centre fire broke out, thick, black smoke filled the air. Darshen Singh was close by at the time, and filmed the blaze as it grew.

He and his family had just finished the birthday lunch in Mt Eden about 1pm and he was driving back to the office when the first calls came in of the blaze.

A few suburbs over, his colleague Phil Larcombe, a senior station officer at Auckland Central, had just arrived at the scene of what turned out to be a false alarm in Ponsonby.

Thick black clouds of smoke waft across Auckland after a fire started at the SkyCity Convention Centre building site on Tuesday afternoon.

As Woon tells it, the evacuees from the building pointed at the massive plumes of black smoke in the CBD and asked Larcombe: 'Why aren't you at that fire over there?'

Larcombe and his crews shot back to the city centre as Woon's 34 years of firefighting experience kicked into gear.

'I know Phil really well, I knew he had a bit on, so I self-responded.'

He arrived shortly after, taking charge as the first commander on the ground.

The gravity of the situation was immediately clear and Woon realised many more fire appliances were needed.

A firefighter removes his breathing apparatus and takes a first breath of fresh air during the SkyCity fire.

The fire went straight from first alarm to third alarm, then to the fourth, meaning more crews were called.

When firefighters realised how much they were being hindered by the challenging construction site, they escalated the response to fifth alarm about 2.30pm and then to the sixth alarm.

Fire rages uncontrolled through Auckland's SkyCity convention centre for a second day.

That meant Auckland was at full capacity and crews were scrambled from as far afield as Hamilton.

'This is the biggest one [incidents] I've seen in about 10 years,' Woon said.

Pedestrians wore masks and covered their faces to protect themselves from the toxic smoke as the SkyCity fire raged on.

Larcombe and his firefighters had disappeared into the depths of the construction site to battle the blaze from 'catwalks' - narrow sections of scaffolding high above the ground.

Firefighters pulled back as the fire burned on, attacking it from below from the fifth floor, as aerial appliances blasted high-pressure water from above.

While the blaze was huge and relentless, it was not intense, as it did not 'flash over' and engulf whole rooms in flames, Woon said.

Instead, it burned slowly but surely through bitumen and roofing materials.

He knocked off at about 8pm on Tuesday night and returned the next morning at 4am to find the fire covering a large area of the roof.

The blaze started in the central compartment of the roof, where they had hoped to contain it, but it had moved out to either side of the tiered roof.

At that point, the speed of the fire had increased but it's intensity remained at the same level thanks to the relentless firefighting efforts.

When he arrived for his third shift on Wednesday night, he made the call to reduce the amount of water being poured onto the blaze, taking the number of aerial appliances from six down to two.

'I'm speaking candidly now, in that we were managing the rate of spread.

'I increased that rate of spread, because we would have been here for too long otherwise.'

On Friday, in his fourth shift as commander, Woon conceded he was feeling 'a bit flat'.

But he was quick to heap praise on the men and women under his command.

'I have never been so proud and humbled by the work our people have done.'

He also paid tribute to the specialist firefighting staff who manned the aerial appliances, used to fight the fire from above, on long shifts in abysmal conditions including a hail storm and cold westerly blasts of wind.

'Can you imagine, you've done eight hours, by yourself, 100 feet up in the air at 2 o'clock in the morning, aiming a jet at a crane we're protecting, wobbling around in the wind and you're there by yourself.'

'It's hard, it's hugely cold, and we've only got a small pool of aerial operators,' he said.

Woon laughed as he conceded he had yet to buy his wife a birthday present and said his Labour Weekend plans were definitely on hold.

'It was meant to be Labour Weekend but I think I've got a bit of work on here.'