Breakdowns leave fire crews struggling for high ladders

The fire service crisis has reached breaking point, with the last remaining high-ladder trucks between Hamilton and Dunedin unavailable.

The last truck for the lower North Island broke down on Sunday night, and now the last truck for Christchurch has gone offline for servicing.

Thorndon senior station officer Mike Thomason and his crew attended a job at Malvina Major retirement village in Khandallah, Wellington, at about 6.30pm on Sunday night, taking their last 100ft ladder truck to the job.

“On its way back from that fire call, the transmission ceased to function and we had to pull over on the side of the road,” he said.

The firefighters tried to fix the engine and even called out mechanical help but the appliance had to be towed.

The Thorndon ladder is the only device capable of reaching more than 18 metres, and now the closest device needed for anything more than that for the Lower North Island is in Hamilton.

Wellington is supposed to have two trucks reaching 100ft — which Thomason said is about eight to 10 floors of a building — but one had already been out of action with mechanical issues. Now both are unavailable.

“We’re currently borrowing one from the Hutt Valley. It’s 17 metres, which at best gets us about four or five floors up the side of a building, which is insufficient for the high-rise stuff we have in Wellington.”

The taller appliance also had a “basket” on top of the ladder so three or four people can walk into the basket and be lowered to the ground.

The borrowed appliance didn’t have a basket, so rescued members of the public would have to climb out onto the ladder and climb down to the ground, which could be difficult depending on each person’s physical capabilities.

Now the New Zealand Professional Fire Fighters Union has announced that the Christchurch ladder truck, which reaches 32m, has also gone offline for servicing.

Christchurch crews are using a converted concrete mixer in its place.

The news of the breakdown comes in the midst of what the union are calling the “fire crisis”, as they struggle with staffing issues across the country.

In Auckland, the Remuera and Botany fire trucks were offline yesterday while trucks at Mt Roskill and St Heliers were offline on Sunday.

The union has also claimed that staffing issues were a factor in a house burning down in Porirua on Friday night.

“A house in Porirua was destroyed by fire overnight. One of the Porirua fire trucks had been moved to Wellington City because there were no firefighters,” they said.

In a joint statement, the union and Fire and Emergency NZ said they were working on a process to “reengage constructively in collective bargaining”.

“The industrial action under way remains in place, but this will not impact our career firefighters’ ability to respond to emergency incidents”.

Both parties have agreed not to engage in media interviews about the issues to be progressed through the bargaining process.