Latest news with #NZPFU
RNZ News
01-08-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Broken pump forces Hamilton firefighters to withdraw from house fire
The professional firefighters' union says crews are under-resourced, but their employer says they're trained to cope. Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal A "catastrophic failure" to a fire truck responding to a Hamilton fire highlights how under-resourced firefighters are, the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) says. But Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) says issues like this can and do occur and crews are trained and highly skilled to cope. Six fire crews responded to a garage fire in Flagstaff late Thursday night. On arrival they were met with a fully involved house fire. Hamilton local secretary for the NZPFU Jay Culhane said that while in the middle of fighting the fire, Te Rapa's pumping appliance lost the ability to pump water. "There was a catastrophic failure of the pump, so they lost water pressure to the firefighters, both to the internal and external firefighting crew," Culhane said. The crew inside the house had to withdraw from the building and the external firefighters had to move away. "The biggest problem is a fire doubles in size every thirty-seconds so the delay in operations ... you are going to lose more property and suffer more damage." Pumping operations were quickly swapped over to the Chartwell pump truck which began pumping water to continue fighting the fire. There were no reports of injuries to the firefighters. However, Culhane said more incidents like this were happening and poor planning and under-resourcing were to blame. "You can service an old truck as much as you want but they are still going to have issues," he said. A FENZ spokesperson said it had a fleet of around 1300 firefighting trucks. "Our firefighting trucks are well maintained, safe, certified, and legally compliant. We have a strict schedule for regular maintenance and repairs. "We typically spend more than $20 million each financial year on new firefighting trucks and other vehicles. In 2023/24 we spent $26 million, in 2024/25 we spent $20 million, and in 2025/26 we will spend $29 million." The spokesperson said since FENZ was established in 2017, it had purchased 317 new firefighting trucks. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
24-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Professional firefighters' union members reject pay offer of 5.1% over three years
The union says 99 percent of members who attended meetings rejected the offer and voted for strike action. Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal The union for career firefighters has rejected Fire and Emergency New Zealand's latest pay offer of a 5.1 percent pay increase over the next three years. FENZ deputy national commander Megan Stiffler said they felt the offer, along with some increases to some allowances, was "fair" and balanced the cost of living pressures of staff alongside fiscal pressures faced by the agency. New Zealand Professional Firefighters' Union (NZPFU) national secretary Wattie Watson said 99 percent of members who attended meetings had voted to reject the offer, and voted for industrial action. Watson said it was an "appalling offer" that failed to address any of their concerns about the health and safety and the state of fire appliances. They had been bargaining since the middle of last year, and firefighters had not had a pay increase since July 2023, she said. Due to the delays, the 5.1 percent would not cover the lack of any pay increases for the past two years, Watson said. FENZ said collective agreement settlement in 2022 had provided a wage increase of up to 24 percent over a three-year period for career firefighters. However Watson said that settlement covered some of the years leading up to the settlement, and only covered wage increases until 2023. She added that that increase was for correcting decades of firefighters being underpaid. "That pay increase was a result of a process including government involvement, where it was proven that our members were so significantly underpaid when compared to other external workforces, and internally in FENZ - with corporate staff and HR staff - that there needed to be a significant uplift," she said. Meanwhile, FENZ maintained that it had invested significantly in its people and resources. "Fire and Emergency has also been investing in replacing our fleet, with 317 trucks replaced since 2017 and another 70 on order. We are currently spending over $20 million per year on replacement trucks. There is also a significant programme of station upgrades underway, as well as investment in training," Stiffler said. Watson however said that the 317 trucks mostly went to rural fire stations, and that currently the appliances at career fire stations in the urban areas were in a "dismal" state. Watson said career fire stations were expecting to get 40 trucks in the next few months, however testing had discovered that many had problems and none were ready for commissioning, Watson said. Trucks had been breaking down on their way to jobs, and pumps had also been breaking down - putting firefighters and the public at risk, she said. Members deserved a reasonable pay increase that recognised the cost of living pressures, and a package that also addressed the safety concerns, Watson said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
26-06-2025
- Automotive
- Otago Daily Times
Ageing trucks frustrate firefighters
An ageing fleet and a series of mechanical problems has Timaru firefighters feeling like they are quite literally playing with fire when attending a call. Earlier this month, the Timaru area was once again left without both frontline appliances. The Timaru 801 fire engine has been in the workshop for several weeks awaiting parts from the United States. Its temporary replacement, a 31-year-old callout truck, then broke down and the Washdyke 817 returned to action last week after breaking down at the beginning of the month. New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) Timaru local secretary Paul Tilsley said union members were frustrated with the situation. "A small town like Timaru gets the end of the line when it comes to fleet, which is understandable. Busy places get newer trucks but we've had a bit of a fleet crisis for a number of years now. "New trucks haven't been getting built and our two front trucks, whilst they're within the desired age of 20 years, have both had faults at the same time which has meant they've both been off the run. "We've had to again get older trucks than that to keep a fleet going locally. It's not ideal." The situation meant that for the past few weeks the Timaru fleet had been working with training centre trucks, Mr Tilsley said. "Timaru has two main trucks, which are crewed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. One at Timaru, one at Washdyke, and then we have a call-out truck, which is our aerial combination pump truck that if any thing escalates, off-duty staff come in and man that truck. "After that, we've just got one spare, which is supposed to look after the role of one of those first two trucks if they were to break down. So, when you have two breakdowns at the same time, that's when the problem occurs. "We've been forced to beg and borrow from the training centre, and bearing in mind, training centre trucks are even older, because they're not fit to be on the road any more, and not fit to be a frontline response for clients. "Whilst we're very appreciative of the training centre being so generous in lending us a truck, it's still not the sort of service we expect to be using and having to respond to the public with." Filling the gap was a 35-year-old training truck on loan from the Woolston Training Centre. Despite the union concerns about the ageing fleet, Fire and Emergency New Zealand organisational strategy and capability development deputy chief executive Sarah Sinclair said both on-duty crews from Washdyke and Timaru had adequate frontline fire trucks to meet their communities' needs. "All fire trucks spend some time out of frontline service to have proactive and reactive maintenance. This is usual for any fleet of heavy vehicles. "As well as our dynamic fleet allocation, we have a backup [relief] fleet to cover when trucks are being maintained so our service to the community is not affected. In this case a relief truck has been used. "As you would expect, our relief fleet is older than the frontline trucks normally on station and as newer appliances are brought in for busier stations around the country, older trucks will be replaced. We have an ongoing truck replacement programme with 70 new trucks currently on order." Mr Tilsley said delayed response times and failure potential were the biggest dangers when using ageing equipment. "A delayed response occurred just last week. What people don't understand is the truck has got to get you to the job and then the truck engine runs the pump that supplies the water when you get to a fire. "You get a lot of comparisons on Facebook posts about how people drive trucks that do a million kilometres in them. Well, that's fine, that's what those trucks are designed to do, they sit on the road at steady speed, revs, and they just travel. "Fire trucks are expected to have four firemen jump into it, slam doors, and take off as fast as they can as quickly as possible. Hard acceleration, hard braking, cold starts, and in all manner of conditions. "Then when the truck is actually at the job, if it's a fire, it's then required to pump water, which is, again, the motor being used differently to what a normal truck is." He said with no new trucks being built and the use of a cascade system, it had been seven or eight years since a "new"'truck had been added to the Timaru fleet. "I think you do need to put a new truck into a provincial brigade like the Timarus and the Nelsons of the world and things like that instead of just giving them the hand-me-downs that have been thrashed for 10 years already. "All we can hope, I suppose, in the short term is that the new trucks that are arriving imminently come into the system and then we'll eventually get something slightly newer as they cascade down. But we're not holding our breath. "I'd like to make the point that this is not directed towards the people that service and repair our trucks and fleet. They're as frustrated as we are because they obviously see the age of them as well. "They do the best they can with what they're given and unfortunately, they're given the same as us, old trucks that are becoming less reliable."
