Firefighters ‘feel let down’
Firefighters feel ‘‘let down’’ by Fire and Emergency after an asbestos shutdown at their station.
On Thursday last week, the fire station went into a lockdown after contractors drilled through a concrete wall, releasing asbestos into the station, Fire and Emergency NZ district manager Vaughan Mackereth said.
The entire station designated a ‘‘hot zone’’.
Stuff understands workers were on site cleaning until at least 3am on Friday.
Meanwhile, the asbestos can’t be removed until five days after WorkSafe is notified about the situation by a licensed asbestos removalist, according to the Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations.
New Zealand Professional Firefighter’s Union Auckland secretary Martin Campbell said the drilling was in the accommodation area.
Renovations began some six months ago to accommodate crew from Parnell after the station was demolished, he said.
Because of this, the union says anyone who was in the station in the past six months should fill out a formal incident report.
‘‘The frustration with this incident is they have been living in was their safe place, their place of work,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘Firefighters feel let down by Fenz.’’
Asbestos consultant Mike Cosman said in buildings built before 2000, construction work must include an ‘‘intrusive asbestos survey’’ first, which involves careful drilling to take samples of material inside the walls or ceilings.
Firefighters at the station on
Thursday were ‘‘right to be concerned’’, Cosman said.
‘‘They should, if they’re investigating properly, share [the findings] with their workers and their worker health and safety reps,’’ he said.
‘‘So at the very least the people who are involved in this particular incident should be made aware of the findings so that they can see that lessons have been learned.’’
Campbell said the fire service has said it will pay for any costs associated with staff getting their health checked out following the potential exposure, as required to by law.
But Cosman said there isn’t much point in seeing a specialist anytime soon.
‘‘There’s nothing that can be picked up by a medical examination relating to that exposure [and] even a chest x-ray exposes you to a small amount of radiation, so you don’t want to be doing that unnecessarily.’’
On Friday, a Fire and Emergency senior executive, Sarah Sinclair would not answer specific questions about how the asbestos was discovered, as Fenz would be asking the same questions in its internal investigation.
Sinclair confirmed the Auckland Central station was surveyed for asbestos in 2021 and had a plan in place. In 2021, the fire service had asbestos surveyors assess 497 workplaces and found asbestos at 64% of them. None were high risk, and the medium risk sites were ‘‘at the lower end of the category’’, Sinclair said.
Auckland City crews were redeployed to the Grey Lynn and Avondale stations.
On Friday evening, Fire and Emergency region manager Ron Devlin said all fire trucks at Auckland City Fire Station have been ‘‘tested and cleared by asbestos specialists, and deep cleaned by commercial cleaners’’.
Devlin said there is no date yet for when the station will reopen.