Professional Firefighters' Union Auckland local representative and station officer Toby Morris. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson
Firefighters say they no longer have confidence in their ageing vehicle fleet, and fear it could let them down in life or death situations.
They said they had learned to get by, but worried that with an ageing fleet and constant mechanical faults they would not be able to continue plugging the gaps.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand has said new trucks were on the way and insisted the current trucks were being well maintained.
Despite this, the firefighters' union was planning further industrial action and said FENZ needed to do more.
On what was typically one of the busiest nights of the year for firefighters, Guy Fawkes, one of the country's largest fire crews were battling with an ageing fleet of trucks.
Firefighters say they no longer have confidence in their ageing fleet vehicles. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson
Two hours into their 14 hour shift they already had three jobs, but said it was not the calls that may come in that worried them, but the truck they were sitting in.
It is 29 years old, a replacement for their aerial truck that is being repaired, and unlike an aerial it does not have a mechanical ladder.
Cameron Graham, who has been firefighting for 16 years, said it had become increasingly common to be in trucks as old as he was, and that their aerial truck had been out of action more times than the crew can remember.
"The truck out there, it's not a one for one replacement for the truck it's come to replace, it's not a heavy aerial, it doesn't have a 32m reach, that is a single pumping appliance. Our relief aerial has been off the run for over a year, so it hasn't been replaced by adequate resourcing."
It has got him worried he will be prevented from doing his job to the best of his ability.
"I've been on a hose in a fire in a house and the pumps stopped working and it was a 32-year-old truck like that. We have to have confidence in our gear, we have to have confidence that I'm going to go in to this fire and have no protection if it happens again.
"It might not be my life, it might be a fellow firefighter, it might be a member of the public."
Relief trucks are passed around stations so often they often aren't adequately resourced with all the gear fire fighters need. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson
Last month, firefighters walked off the job for one hour in a nationwide strike. The union had further strike action planned for Friday which it has now cancelled, agreeing to go back to the bargaining table.
Professional Firefighters Union Auckland local representative and station officer Toby Morris has been a firefighter for a quarter of a century
He said the state of their equipment was the worst he had ever seen it.
"Last strike we were in what we call the fire crisis where our fleet was horrendous, three years later, we're worse."
Morris said crews around the country were regularly using relief trucks while their usual appliances were repaired, but it had got to the point where the relief trucks themselves were also failing.
He said their original trucks were also nowhere near up to scratch for the country's busiest station.
"We've got one of the newest trucks in the fleet, it's nine years old, we're supposed to have a truck no older than three years, we're supposed to be a tier one station we get a truck for three years when it's brand new, out of the box, under warranty, then it'll go to a tier two station which is a quieter station. We're about to tick into where that truck should be a tier three station, skip the tier two stations."
The Professional Firefighters' Union members are in a long-running dispute with Fire and Emergency New Zealand over pay and staffing. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson
Around 8.30pm while there was a lull in calls, the crew took the opportunity to have dinner, a roast by one of their own.
The room echoed with laughs and banter, before conversation returned to the issue that firefighter, Ants, said was almost always top of mind.
"It's expected now, people have no confidence in any of our equipment because of the continual failings of our equipment.
"It's almost a daily occurrence that you'll have to take one of those trucks out to the workshops to get something on it repaired just to keep it on the run, it's sad, it's sad for us but it's also sad for the public, it's the public who are the ones at the end of the day are facing the consequences. "
The stories told by the city crew differ greatly from comments made by David Seymour in Parliament last week, which he said he was told by FENZ.
Seymour said he had been advised there had only been one recent breakdown that had led to a delay in getting to a fire.
However on Wednesday he retracted that answer and said FENZ had issued an apology after giving him information that was based on a miscommunication.
Seymour said he had not been provided with a revised number of breakdowns of trucks responding to a fire, as that number did not exist.
FENZ deputy national commander Megan Stiffler said while faults were reported with their trucks most days, that did not mean trucks were breaking down every day.
They had replaced 317 trucks in their fleet since 2017 and another 78 were in the pipeline, she said.
As a busier station Auckland City will receive one of the appliances on order, while older ones will be deployed to quieter stations.
She said FENZ had a strict schedule for regular maintenance and repairs.
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