90 more career firefighters needed to solve staffing issues, union says

Monday, 23 May 2022

Video shows the 2am fire that broke out in the rear of the Manukau Road property.

A “huge” increase of career firefighters is required to solve staffing issues, the NZ Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) says.

Martin Campbell, the union’s Auckland local secretary, said the city needs 90 career firefighters over and above current numbers to meet demand.

Campbell said Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) has no plan to review staffing, “nor have they reviewed current numbers since the 80s and early 90s”.

The NZ Professional Firefighters Union is calling for more career firefighters in Auckland. (File photo)

Stuff has previously reported the numbers of career firefighters is at “crisis levels” throughout Auckland, resulting in trucks being out of commission.

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When a fire truck is unavailable, the fire stations either close for the day or FENZ sends a fire truck from another suburb to respond to emergencies, which Campbell said comes with “significant” risks.

Campbell said on Friday: “A serious house fire in Ōrākei was unable to be attended by the Parnell station that would normally have responded, due to lack of staff available and FENZ sent a fire truck from further away.

“Fire spreads quickly and any delay in emergency services attending poses a serious risk to life and property.”

He said Monday was the “first time in two weeks we're fully staffed across the board”.

“Staff are usually having to work horrendous hours to cover vacancies and make sure adequate resources are available to respond to emergencies,” said Campbell.

Over this past weekend in Auckland, fire trucks at Parnell, Glen Eden and Balmoral couldn’t be staffed due to a lack of career firefighters and on Sunday, the Remuera station also couldn’t be staffed, he said.

Wellington, Dunedin and Nelson were also short-crewed over the weekend.

“In Nelson, one of their specialist aerial trucks was unable to be staffed. In Dunedin, one fire truck was unavailable, and in Wellington they had three fire trucks which were also out of commission,” said Campbell.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said all stations in New Zealand were covered over the weekend, but some trucks were unavailable due to staffing availability.

In Dunedin, one truck was temporally unavailable during the day shift on Saturday but was back in service by 6pm. All trucks were available in Nelson, but they were down a firefighter.

In Wellington, three trucks on Saturday and two trucks on Sunday were temporally unavailable, while in Auckland three trucks in were temporally unavailable on Saturday and one was off on Sunday.

Ron Devlin, region manager for Auckland, pointed out that 33 career trucks and 51 volunteer trucks are in service across 70 fire stations in Tāmaki Makaurau.

“In other words, over the weekend we had sufficient staff to do our job and keep the Auckland community safe.”

FENZ referred questions about when staffing levels were last reviewed to the OIA process.

Kerry Gregory, FENZ chief executive, said FENZ was in negotiations with the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union over its collective employment agreement.