Emails show senior Fire and Emergency managers played down the risks to crews and homes when a dodgy firetruck froze up at a big house fire in Wellington.
Firefighters tackle the fire in Kilbirnie in February. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The large truck, its backup systems and its big hose stopped dead for 5-10 minutes, with the 32m-long ladder partly raised and a firefighter up in the cage, in Kilbirnie in February.
Firefighters reported the failure caused delays in protecting crew and neighbouring homes.
"The main issue I see is that operational firefighting tactics were compromised due to the vehicle's reliability shortcomings," one said.
But days later, the national fleet manager told other managers that there was no "serious risk" to crew because the truck has backup safety systems and does not operate alone.
The truck was the largest of 10 firetrucks at the fire. All its backup systems failed temporarily at Kilbirnie.
Three girls fled the fire just in time, around 8am-9am.
It was the third time in a few days the truck had broken down this way, once just the day before, during checks.
FENZ has previously rejected the Professional Firefighters' Union's claims that fleet mismanagement has led to increasing numbers of risky breakdowns.
The 214 pages of emails were first released to the union, though with a few key parts about the breakdown's impacts blanked out by FENZ, citing the OIA grounds of needing to protect "free and frank" discussion.
The agency then reinstated these when it re-released the emails, after RNZ appealed to the Ombudsman.
One of the reinstated emails is from the Assistant Commander of Wellington district, Michael Dombroski, who wrote: "In terms of fighting a fire, 5-10 minutes is probably not considered 'brief'," he said.
"Any delay causes problems such as exposing staff on hand-held hose-lines for longer than would otherwise be the case.
"It also exposed the operator in the aerial platform cage to radiant heat until the water was flowing."
The impact "wasn't zero", he said.
Firefighting plan needed to change
FENZ told RNZ a few hours later that the breakdown had "no impact" on the outcome of the fire; it did not mention the impact on operations.
But crew had reported they could not use the big ladder-hose to tackle the house fire front on, as planned.
"There were delays in protecting the adjacent properties and working crews, unfortunately stretching the on-scene crews' ability to focus on extinguishment early by having to cover additional tasks the aerial should have been doing," they reported to managers, who told headquarters.
Other crews were using smaller, handheld hoses to keep the house next door from catching fire.
They kept doing that - but this delayed directing water at the rapidly burning house itself.
A neighbour told RNZ she saw firefighters "frantically running back and forth".
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Six days after the fire, FENZ's national fleet manager Mike Moran told managers that the breakdown "appeared to resolve itself", the emails show.
"The appliance has multiple backup safety systems and does not operate alone, and I don't believe that the appliance itself creates a serious risk to an operator's health and safety," he said.
The breakdown was later diagnosed as a fault with the controls of the cage at the end of the ladder.
The burnt out house. Photo: RNZ / Phil Pennington
Previous breakdowns experienced
The truck had suffered similar breakdowns during checks on 1 February and 20 January this year, and in 2017, when a cage levelling fault described as "catastrophic" was judged as certain to have "ejected" any firefighter in the cage.
After the Kilbirnie fire, Wellington firefighters blacklisted the truck.
It has now spent all but a few weeks out of service since 2019, despite a $200,000 refurbishment in 2020 and nearly all of 2021 focused on fixing issues arising from that repair.
FENZ has repeatedly rejected union claims the fleet - and especially the large 'aerial' trucks - is at risk, including in statements over several months to RNZ, defending its fleet management as robust, and saying firetrucks always have backup and the public is completely safe.
However, the Kilbirnie breakdown shows a gap between what the frontline, and what HQ, say. The frontline report said: "Because of the reliability of the vehicle and its previous history of malfunctioning, the tactics employed had to change to protect the vehicle and personnel from any potential radiant heat issues due to any unforeseen breakdown."
This meant parked on the far side - not the near side - of the street from the burning house. Even so, radiant heat partly melted one of the cowlings.
Emails show the senior managers discussing how to describe the breakdown to RNZ, which had asked what impact it had "on firefighting".
"I guess the overall outcome would have been the same regardless of the aerial failure - the house was totally destroyed and minimal damage was done to the house next door [the roof was a bit scorched is all]. It is more the 'effect' the failure had in terms of our operations/tactics," Dombroski wrote.
At this point, FENZ's communications team changed its draft statement that said there was "minimal impact", to a final statement to media that said there was "no impact on the outcome of the fire".
FENZ said it stood by that statement.
The agency refused to comment further while it carries on with an investigation into what happened.
