Fire stations closed, short-staffed across Auckland amid ongoing worker crisis

Saturday, 18 June 2022

Mental health support for firefighters is sorely lacking, those on the frontline say. (This video was first published on June 17, 2022.)

At least three fire stations across Auckland are understaffed on Saturday, amid nationwide disputes between professional firefighters and Fire and Emergency New Zealand.

One of those stations is Parnell, which dispatched a fire truck on Friday night to rescue a man from a house fully ablaze.

The New Zealand Professional Firefighters’ Union said as firefighters were on their way to respond to the Ōrākei fire, they learned there might be someone trapped inside.

When they arrived, the house was roaring with flames and a man was halfway out a window trying to escape.

In Onehunga, staffing is so low that fire trucks will have to come from Mount Wellington or Papatoetoe to respond to fires in the area if needed.

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The fire in Parnell on June 17 completely ravaged the house. A man was inside and was already trying to escape when the fire crew arrived, firefighters said.

The crew was able to rescue him, offer immediate medical assistance and get him to hospital for observation.

Just hours later, on Saturday morning, the same fire station was so understaffed the truck couldn’t be used for jobs, union local secretary for Auckland Martin Campbell said.

Instead, trucks from further away would be called, which would escalate the risk for those in trouble, Campbell said.

“Time is our enemy in emergencies. Seconds cost lives.”

A Parnell fire crew responded to an emergency on Friday night, but was unable to fully staff all its trucks the next day.

As well as Parnell, there were staffing shortages at Birkenhead and Onehunga fire stations on Saturday.

In Onehunga, the senior station officer was off and a junior station officer had been called to cover them.

That would be problematic if a major disaster happened at Auckland Airport, for example, Campbell said.

“Often what they’ll do is rob Peter to pay Paul. If the fire truck has to close down somewhere they will take a truck from another community and relocate it to that station.

“They are just shuffling the old deck chairs on the Titanic instead of actually solving the problem, unfortunately,” Campbell said.

In a statement, Fire and Emergency NZ Te Hiku (northern) region manager Ron Devlin said there were always contingency plans for when staffing levels dropped in response to staff sick leave or annual leave.

“Like any large employer, we expect some of our staff will be absent on any given day for a variety of reasons, including sick leave and annual leave.

“But as a first responder organisation, we have contingency plans to ensure we can respond to emergencies, taking into account that we often have multiple events happening at the same time.

“We always provide cover, including using trucks and firefighters from neighbouring stations. This is entirely routine – if trucks from one station are attending an incident, resources from another station are often moved to provide cover.”

On June 12, firefighters launched a nationwide administrative strike to protest what they see as unsafe staffing levels and have been calling on Fire and Emergency NZ to take urgent action.

Firefighters were still responding to all fires, medical incidents and all emergency response, so public safety wouldn’t be impacted by the strike, union secretary Wattie Watson said.

The strike involved crew not completing mandatory administrative tasks, including gathering statistics, non-essential paperwork, training and attending conferences.