Overcrowding adds fuel to fire hazards

IN her 14 months as a fire risk officer, Emma Goldsworthy has never seen a garage that’s been used to store a car.

The tin sheds of South Auckland have three bedrooms and house up to a dozen people.

High rates of overcrowding, pockets of deprivation, and multilevel state homes are unique to the area.

And it’s for these reasons its residents are more likely to be the victims of a house fire.

In October, two people died in separate fires, two days apart over Labour Weekend; one in Ma¯ ngere East – the family was Samoan and the man who died was elderly, and ill – and the other in Manurewa, where a woman died trying to save someone else.

They were the second and third fatal house fires for the area that year, both caused by candles.

Between 2015 and 2019, 14 people died in house fires in Counties Manukau, more than any other region in the country, and 111 people were injured, according to Fire and Emergency NZ.

The Christchurch metro area had the second-highest fatalities, 10, and Auckland city and Waitemata¯ had seven each.

Between January 2015 and December 2019, there were 2366 house fires in South Auckland, mostly in Manurewa. The most common cause was unattended cooking (442 incidences).

Ma¯ ori living in South Auckland were more likely to suffer a house fire, followed by Pasifika, then

Pa¯ keha¯ .

At Papatoetoe fire station, Counties Manukau senior fire risk management officer Robert Watson and Goldsworthy project a large map of Auckland on a white wall, overlaid with deprivation statistics.

Shades of red make up Counties Manukau, highlighting the most impoverished areas, and it features a high concentration of white dots – a rough account of all the fire callouts this year.

‘‘The picture tells you a story,’’ Watson said.

Overcrowding is a big factor, and there are unique cultural risks.

‘‘The more people living in a home, the more the risk of a fire, and a fatal fire. There’s lots of people cooking, lots of people to get out of the house if there was a fire, and then there’s the two and threestorey homes.’’

Watson has been in the role for more than 50 years, and has visited homes that have had multiple fires.

‘‘It’s awful when . . . I’m looking at this house thinking, ‘I know this

South Auckland ................................... 2366 Wellington ............................................... 2238 Auckland city ......................................... 2233 Christchurch ........................................... 1995 Waitemata¯ ................................................ 1913

place, how do I know this place?’ And I know it because I was going to fires in that same house, in that same area, as much as 30 years ago.

‘‘It’s not uncommon for us to talk to people and find out they’ve had two house fires.

‘‘Most of us go through our lives without having one, but there are people here where that happens.’’

Goldsworthy has studied community resilience, focussing on the Ma¯ ngere and O¯ ta¯ huhu area, and while talking to community members, found they were confident that if there was a fire, or a large-scale natural disaster, their neighbours and community would help them.

Remuera residents were more likely to be insured, have family they can stay with, another property, or financial backing.

She concluded that while

Ma¯ ngere and O¯ ta¯ huhu may be a low socio-economic area, residents were culturally and socially rich, making them more resilient.

At the previous census, 398,295 people signalled they lived in