NZ Fire Service questioned over sprinkler policy

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The Firefighters Union says the policy of sending only two crews to buildings with sprinklers was not enough

UPDATED
Published: Thu, 08 Jul 2010 1:01p.m.

By Tim Lambourne

The Fire Fighters Union wants the New Zealand Fire Service to review its policy of reducing the number of crews that attend alarm callouts at buildings with sprinklers installed.

Yesterday Auckland University’s O'Rorke Hall caught fire and the sprinklers didn't go off.

The Fire Fighters Union says the policy of sending only two crews was not enough.

Steve Warner, president of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union, says the speed of response to the fire suffered because of reduced crews.

“What did happen because of the reduced response is that fire crews weren't able to get up to that fire floor on the eighth floor as quickly as they should of...would have been able to if there was more firefighters there.”

The New Zealand Fire Service says the new system is in place to free up crews that often get called to false alarms.

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Comments [3]

B Whyte

09 Jul 2010 12:10a.m.

...and what about when they are NOT false alarms? (In response to the above statement).

Is the Fire Service Policy relying on correct building information for thousands of buildings? or maybe that someone else will call?

So much for all the Fire Service adverts on tv saying that fires are fast... or are they saying "but we can wait a little while to confirm that its actually a fire before we come"

It's rather ironic that these procedures are often tried out in various parts of the world. 15 years ago this was talked about in parts of the UK, and it didn't work.

I just hope that the Fire Service will revert their procedures before a multiple-fatality fire happens.

Aren't the firemen on duty anyway? Send them: they can always return to the station if not needed.

Brian Whyte
Ex Midlands UK
Fire Service for 31 years

Adam

08 Jul 2010 10:22p.m.

Karlum for argument sake lets say it took these crews 5 mins to get from the station to the building and because of the staged evacuation and the low occupancy levels due to the school holidays the two crews containing a total of only 4 firefighters dont pass anybody in the stair well from the fire floor to let them no of the smoke or fire,another five minutes to reach the floor and find the smoke, by this time 10mins has passed you then call for back up and the closest trucks are going to be at least 10min untill they reach the floor thats on fire,meaning any students that have sleeped through the alarm are going to be in there smoke filled rooms for a absolute minimum of 20min,how can this be safe?

Karlum Lattimore

08 Jul 2010 4:25p.m.

This story is inaccurate. The policy is to send two appliances to investigate an automatic alarm in low risk buildings with sprinklers installed. In almost all cases, these alarms are false alarms. More appliances are sent immediately if there is confirmation of an actual fire either from a 111 call, another automatic alarm, or our crew see signs of fire on arrival.
Karlum Lattimore
National Media Advisor
NZ Fire Service