Hunt on for NZ's next top fire truck, crews cross fingers for better models
Friday, 30 October 2020
Kiwi firefighting bosses have started the hunt for new heavy-duty trucks to replace their troublesome current fleet.
The trucks sought by Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) are type-three appliances, heavy pumps used mainly by career firefighters in busy stations.
The latest MAN type-three models have a chequered past.
Sixty per cent were pulled from service for urgent repairs after cracks were found in their frames. Thirteen of the 47 in service remain off the roads.
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Their removal from service forced firefighters to use ageing “relief appliances” prone to breakdowns.
In September, two such relief appliances broke down on arrival at a massive blaze in Auckland, delaying the response and leaving firefighters battling the flames without water, forcing them to beat a hasty retreat.
The previous year, a relief type-three caught fire on its way to a blaze in Wellington, one of two fire trucks to catch alight that day.
Fenz is running a tender for new type-threes and has set a deadline for proposals from prospective suppliers of November 27.
Top brass in Wellington won't say which companies are in the mix.
Russell Wood, Fenz's deputy chief executive of organisational strategy and capability development, said proposals were commercially sensitive and confidential.
Fenz is refusing to provide any details of who had submitted proposals until the request-for-proposal (RFP) process closes and the choice is made.
Do you know more? Email george.block@stuff.co.nz
But documents provided to prospective suppliers, and obtained by Stuff, paint a picture of what Fenz is looking for in its new type-threes.
A lengthy RFP document says Fenz wants to appoint a small panel of suppliers, with a preferred supplier receiving the majority of the business.
It aims to have 90 per cent of its type-three fleet younger than 20 years, and to meet this target it wants to update about 10 appliances per year, every year, the document says.
“Whilst the design of our current appliances has changed very little since the 1970s, the role of our service has.”
The document says crews now attend fewer fires and more incidents requiring specialist equipment, such as medical, rescue and hazardous substance calls.
As a result, Fenz wants the new trucks to perform as both an emergency response vehicle and a classic firefighting pump or rescue tender.
Key to its new procurement approach is that Fenz no longer wants to be in the business of putting together fire engines.
Instead, it wants a “turn-key” solution from suppliers who can also organise support and maintenance.
That contrasts with how the MAN type-three appliances were procured.
The German truck company supplied the vehicles then Fraser Engineering in Lower Hutt fitted firefighting gear like lockers and hose reels.
One firefighter Stuff spoke to described the MAN / Fraser type-threes as a “delivery truck with a pump in the back”.
Before the procurement process kicked off in earnest, Fenz went to firefighters and managers to create “user stories”, which were compiled into wishlist-like tables in the RFP documents with a weighting given to the importance of each point.
Among the requests were cab visibility, comfort and ergonomics, an ability to pump for extended periods without losing pressure and a design which reduced the risk of vehicles being dragged under appliances in an accident.
NZ Professional Firefighters Union Wellington Local president Clark Townsley said management was playing their cards close to their chest on how the RFP was going, and he had no idea which companies were in the mix.
He was complimentary of the process Fenz was running so far and supported the “user-stories” approach.
Townsley said the union wanted two variants of trucks to be procured, one a pump and the other a pump / rescue vehicle.
“The one size fits all model doesn't work.”
His union highlighted a shortage of type-threes in 2016 when the issues in the MANs were first starting to come to light, Townsley said.
The then-Fire Service stopped purchasing them to remedy the faults and the result was a shortfall in appliances, he said.
Deputy chief executive Wood said Fenz planned to procure and build 36 MAN type-three appliances over the next three years while the procurement process for the new vehicles gathered steam.
Fenz has 47 Fraser / MAN type-threes, Wood said.
“Cracks were found around the steel framing that supports the side-lockers and other external areas of the trucks in 28 of these trucks. All 28 were then removed from service for repair.”
Fifteen have since been fixed and returned to service while 13 remain out of action, he said.
“We continue to prioritise resolving this.”