Firefighters are refusing to work on a fire truck left stranded without power to its big ladder at a blaze that destroyed a Wellington house last week.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The main engine and both of the two backup systems on the 35m-long 'aerial' truck all failed at the Kilbirnie fire, forcing operators into a hurried fix.
"The appliance was ... stranded in the middle of the street, taking radiant heat from the fire, and the operators couldn't do a lot with it," said Wellington firefighter and union secretary Alan Collett.
This was despite almost half a million dollars spent on repairs and refurbishment on the truck since 2016, and it being out of service for much of the last two years.
The Professional Firefighters' Union has now issued a notice to Fire and Emergency saying its members refuse to work on the Newtown-based truck any longer, though they are happy to use a replacement.
The notice said "potential serious risk" exists even after two years of the union trying to get this sorted with FENZ. Collett said it was the last straw for an ageing fleet that had been poorly managed.
RNZ has previously reported how recent breakdowns on their ageing truck fleet have put firefighters at risk.
The agency has four new aerials on order, but the waitlist is long and they won't get here till 2023.
At Kilbirnie last Wednesday, the truck had already been jacked up and partly raised its ladder to begin pumping water, when it seized. It was the largest truck at the fire.
"Luckily, both very experienced operators managed to fault-find and within five minutes, they got the emergency battery ... back-up power up and running," Collett said.
"They managed to move the boom so they could actually apply water in front of them, to protect themselves from the fire.
"There was still some minor melting damage on one of the front guards. So their quick thinking, I think, saved Fire and Emergency from losing a million-dollar-plus appliance."
The truck had played up the night before in training, and the Newtown station put out an email as a heads-up to staff.
In fact, the truck has played up so much down the years that a [https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21199670/aerial-fey-investigation-2017.pdf
FENZ investigation in 2017] said that staff had "reporting fatigue" from recording so many recurring faults.
At Kilbirnie last week, they parked the truck a bit further away than they normally would, just in case of problems - and just as well.
FENZ said a second aerial was sent, but was not needed once the first got going again "within 10 minutes".
"The disruption in getting the aerial fire truck into position had no impact to the outcome of the fire," Russell Wood, deputy chief executive of organisational strategy and capability development, said in a statement.
"On any given day we could be attending multiple incidents. We are prepared for that.
"That's why we have contingency plans in place so the next available truck will be responded."
It had 10 trucks in all at the fire.
The problem truck is at the workshop, but a cause has yet to be identified.
The union aims to lodge three Provisional Improvement Notices with WorkSafe this week, prompted by the Kilbirnie failure.
"We take any issue reported seriously," Wood said in a statement. They were working with the union over its concerns.
Collett said the Newtown operators were angry and disappointed.
Crews "just feel like they've been hamstringed [sic] by the lack of care of FENZ into any kind of strategy around these aerial appliances".
The 2017 investigation report said something similar: "There is a long history of faults and safety concerns with this appliance ..., which has created significant trust and confidence issues within the crews that operate it.
"This is compounded by 'reporting fatigue' from crews who continually list faults that keep reappearing."
The investigation back then was into the cage on the ladder suddenly tipping forward during checks, violently enough to "eject" a person, had anyone been in it.
"There is evidence of this fault, or similar, being reported five times since 9 September 2014, [and] it appears to have been fully investigated only once," it said.
The system for reporting and fixing firetruck faults was "ineffective and ambiguous".
"Reporting problems are endemic. The crews do not always report faults correctly and there is no reporting of rectification of faults back to crews."
RNZ asked FENZ if it had fixed this system since then.
FENZ asked for more time to respond to this. However, Wood did say: "Our fleet is regularly maintained, safe and suitable."
The agency is still working on updating its aerial fleet strategy.
Its current, outdated strategy relies on the trucks each lasting for 25 years, with a rebuild at 10 years. The 2017 report warned the agency that high wear and tear was taking its toll on the aerials.
The Newtown truck is only 13 years old but has been out of service for most of the last two years, despite $430,000 spent on it since 2016.
Its repair and maintenance record has more than 70 entries since 2016.
Collett: "We feel like we're just having to make-do ... and it's getting more and more difficult."
FENZ expects to collect $616m in levies from the public in 2021-22. Five years ago the levy raised $370m. The levy has been broadened and raised since 2018.
The large aerial maintenance bill hit $1.1m for the 28 trucks last year, up from $750,000 in 2016.