Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Fire and Emergency NZ has run out of money to give firefighters more lifesaving gas monitors, with the project only half done.
It has equipped 51 of the country's busiest fire stations so far, but lacks funding for another 49.
It is the latest of many big problems for a world-leading project aimed at gauging the threat of toxic gases at the frontline in order to make firefighting safer.
FENZ has been scrambling since June to get funding for the remaining 49 fire stations, even though the 51 stations' monitors are already detecting high risks.
"The gas detection devices and monitors, we've actually got them, they've been purchased, but they're sitting in a cupboard somewhere," a senior firefighter said.
FENZ runs out of money for gas monitors
The high gas readings were already impacting what firefighters did, internal documents released under the Official Information Act showed.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union said this meant firefighters had begun putting on breathing gear earlier, and parking fire engines further away.
In one case, a new monitor saved two fire investigators and a police officer inspecting an Auckland house after a fatal fire occurred. They were oblivious to the risks of a spike in carbon monoxide until the monitor went off.
"Who knows how long we could have been in a high CO environment before noticing or, as a worst case, been in a house that we didn't know was burning!" one told the Fire and Emergency magazine.
The project began collating data from the new monitors for the first time in November. The aim is to get them into the busiest 100 fulltime and volunteer stations, out of more than 600 stations.
A recent report said initial findings from the project had raised "concern over several incidents".
By May this year, FENZ's executive had "noted high risks identified as a result of data already collated through rollout of existing gas detectors [monitors]", an email said.
Yet by June, the project had slipped "below the funding line in priority".
"If funding isn't confirmed for FY24/25 we'll be unable to continue with the rollout to the remaining 49 stations," a memo to executives said.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
FENZ was asked on Thursday if it had got the funding required, but did not say.
The project was world-leading, as brigades in other countries were not equipped this way, both FENZ and the union said.
However, it had been poorly resourced and badly mismanaged for years, the documents show.
Two assessments in 2022 both rated the project "red" or "unhealthy" after identifying a host of basic shortcomings, such as there being no project management plan, no detailed business case, and an unclear budget.
Yet the project was also urgent. FENZ had no personal monitors up till 2021, and what it did have - gas surveyors - were "obsolete" and "failing at a rapid rate", the documents showed. It leased 180 gas survey units to replace them.
FENZ also bought personal gas monitors for the first time in 2021. "They will give firefighters much more protection at fires, gas leaks, refrigerant plants, accidental and self-harm medical events, confined spaces and post-fire investigations," it said in its magazine.
It took about two years, however, to get those to just half the 100 stations planned. In the meantime, FENZ has also been slowly distributing a third type of tech - detectors for chlorine and ammonia gas - as training permits.
By 2022, as the project crawled on, one of the two reviews of the gas detection project said: "While we can't judge the competing priorities from other FENZ projects, there would seem to be considerable risks in working with obsolete gas equipment and continuing to be in contravention of Health and Safety at Work regulations."
It took until May 2023 for FENZ to put in new management, five years into the project.
The internal reports all stressed how important it was to get all the monitors out to 100 stations.
"The work needs to be progressed regardless of funding source," managers told FENZ's executives in June.
The documents suggested changing policies and doctrines due to the gas findings would also cost money, but FENZ denied this to RNZ.
The managers in May ranked the project "high risk but below prioritisation line ... despite the high operational risk identified from data already collated through the rollout of the first 51 stations".
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Firefighter Martin Campbell is the union's main representative on the gas detection working group.
"It's frustrating to know that potentially equipment that can actually save people's lives, not only of firefighters but of members of the public, is just sitting in a cupboard," Campbell told RNZ.
"These gas detectors will prevent tragedies like the Tamahere disaster happening again, so it's incredibly important these devices are rolled out in a timely manner."
The Tamahere disaster saw a gas blast at a coolstore kill one firefighter and injure seven others. An inquiry later found that gas monitors would have prevented it.
Following the disaster, FENZ made moves to put gas survey gear on its trucks, but not personal monitors.
Campbell said the project's new data about the threat of dangerous gases was being disseminated to other firefighters, but more had to be done, and the union was working with FENZ on that.
Professional Firefighters' Union national secretary Wattie Watson said the union originally thought the project was being run "really well".
"In June last year there seemed to be stalling ... from management level, and again now ... They are now trying to basically do a cheaper job."
FENZ said late on Thursday that its priority now was studies arising from the data from the 51 stations with monitors already. This was "not an equipment rollout project", it said in a statement.
However, many of its own internal documents referred to equipment rollout. The union said gathering the data depended on rolling out the equipment.
Two studies were ongoing into firefighter behaviour and could lead to more changes at the frontline. One on structure fires was due at the end of 2024, while one on wildfire exposure was due at the end of 2025. An attempt to measure gases in 2023 at the Port Hills fire in Christchurch was stymied.
The studies would feed into what was done next about equipment, FENZ said.
The Australian and New Zealand National Council for Fire and Emergency Services was also interested in the results.
FENZ told RNZ it had sought external legal advice during the gas detection project and was told it was meeting its health and safety obligations.
It swapped out the project's management in May 2023, after two scathing reviews in 2022 were made public after an Official Information Act request by RNZ.
"The project is lacking in many project management basics," the latter review said, including not having a project coordinator for years, or any proper baselines or list of problems and priorities.
Many key documents were missing entirely or not handed over when key staff left.
The assessors could not even find evidence of official approval of the project.
"Nobody was clear on it," they said.
"We were told that FENZ finds it hard to generate a good set of benefit statements and objectives ... and struggles to articulate reasons for investment that will benefit, for example, firefighters or the general public.
"It was commented to us that governance is not done well in FENZ."
The first review in 2022 found similar gaps, and said despite repeated requests to fill them, "there has been no resource made available".
It took two years just to move from preparing an initial project brief in 2018 to getting the project moving in 2020.
"This is a very long time for a project that has significant health, safety and regulatory implications where the existing equipment was beyond its serviceable life," the second review said.
FENZ accepted its findings, though reviewers noted: "Many of these recommendations relate to items that should have been in place from the start."
The cost, and any cost escalations, of the project remain unclear.
FENZ told RNZ the current project team had worked hard to improve processes and ensure all documentation was "complete and approved to the required standard".