Delayed fire emergency declaration ‘created anxiety’
The Christchurch City Council was too slow in declaring a state of emergency as the Port Hills fires threatened the city, a review says.
The council review, designed to identify lessons from the fire response, says a declaration of emergency should have been declared earlier and an emergency operations centre set up sooner.
Communication with the affected public was also initially inefficient after the fires erupted in February last year, it found.
The review was presented to the Canterbury Civil Defence Emergency Management Group last week.
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel was advised the declaration was not necessary, but believed she should have made it earlier, the review said.
‘‘The findings of this review suggest that the mayor should have received earlier advice regarding a declaration.’’
An earlier declaration of emergency status would have raised public awareness of the nature and potential danger of the fire and provided confidence that all available resources were being utilised.
‘‘The mayor has requested that the Ministry of Civil Defence clarify the legislative framework to make it clear that public confidence is a grounds for declaring a state of emergency,’’ the review said.
It said the size and unpredictability of the fires and the physical distance between incident management teams meant information flow was vital in the management of the response.
Difficulties establishing processes for sharing information between the Selwyn and Christchurch emergency management teams were encountered.
‘‘If the potential consequences of the two fires merging and the risk of evacuations had been considered and communicated to the Christchurch Emergency Operation Centre earlier, it would have enabled the centre to inform residents that evacuations may be required.
‘‘This would have allowed residents to prepare for evacuations, including making arrangements for pets and removing important possessions.’’
Information to affected residents and the public in the initial days was not always timely or sufficient and created ‘‘anxiety in the community’’.
The review noted several problems with the information flow between Selwyn and Christchurch response teams including periods early in the fire event when few updates were provided by Selwyn to Christchurch.
Christchurch had difficulty getting information from fire modellers in Selwyn and, as a result, was unable to advise residents they should prepare for evacuations, the review said.
Getting information on specific properties and establishing the authenticity of the information was also problematic.
‘‘An example of this was when the information came in to say that a certain number of houses had been destroyed. This information was queried by three different people before being released, only to then be found to be incorrect.’’