Fire and Emergency crews at the scene of the Hillpark house fire on 13 May, 2024. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Fire and Emergency says it could not raise an ambulance directly on the morning of a fatal house fire in Auckland because its communication system was down.
Kiwa Ropitini-Fairburn and Tony Marsters, both aged in their mid 20s, died in the blaze, while a third man was seriously injured, on Freshney Place in Hillpark, shortly before 7am on Monday.
Firefighters arrived at the two-storey home within minutes, but could not get in touch with ambulance staff through their usual InterCAD system.
RNZ understands this meant firefighters were unable to advise ambulance staff of any injuries.
A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said the outage meant a phone call had to be made to ambulance operations instead.
"While ambulance staff were on their way to the incident, firefighters were able to rescue two people from the house and administer CPR."
The two victims of the Hillpark fatal house fire have been identified as Tony Marsters (left) and Kiwa Ropitini-Fairburn (right). Photo: Supplied
An ambulance and rapid response vehicle arrived shortly after, the spokesperson said.
A St John spokesperson declined to comment and said queries were best to be directed to Fire and Emergency.
The cause of Monday's fire is still under investigation by police and fire investigators.
A police spokesperson said an examination of the house was still underway on Tuesday afternoon.
The man who was injured remains in a serious condition at Middlemore Hospital, the spokesperson said.
What is InterCAD?
The InterCAD system is used as a way for emergency services, including ambulance, police and the fire service to communicate.
It allows information given by 111 callers to be shared immediately between the three services.
An event is created by the service who were called and dispatch information is sent to all three services at the same time.