Fire stations being closed for one or more days around Tauranga due to staff shortage is continuing to be of high concern with locals.  Concerns have also been raised about staff fatigue.

On Monday, the Tauranga fire station in Cameron Road was closed with the truck and crew being stationed at Mount Maunganui for the day instead. 

This follows the recent closure for two days of the Mount Maunganui Fire Station.

Fire and Emergency NZ District Manager Jeff Maunder says on Friday, September 8, and Saturday, September 9, Mount Maunganui Fire Station saw staffing shortages which took the two trucks at the station offline.

The Mount Maunganui station is crewed with both 24/7 career firefighters and volunteer firefighters. Career crews work on a shift roster, and volunteers respond when required.

Career and volunteer firefighter stations

Greerton, Tauranga, Kawerau, Mount Maunganui, Rotorua and Taupo fire stations have both 24/7 career firefighters and volunteer firefighters, while Papamoa, Te Puke, Maketu, Matata, Mayor View, Omokoroa, Katikati, Whakatane and Waihi are all volunteer firefighter stations.  

Beyond the Bay of Plenty, the closest stations with 24/7 career firefighter staff are Hamilton, Te Rapa, Chartwell and then Papakura and the other Auckland stations.

Travel times from Rotorua and Kawerau to Tauranga are about an hour, whilst Hamilton to Tauranga is closer to 1 hour 45 minutes, and Papakura is three hours away.

Kawerau station 

Historically the resourcing of Kawerau station was heavily influenced by the mill.

“Over recent decades the fire safety systems in the mill have advanced and reduced the risk and more latterly the mill has significantly reduced its operation,” says Jeff.

“There is some very early thinking being done on the resourcing of the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

“Nothing will change unless wide consultation is supportive of any change that may be proposed.”

Jeff says Whakatane is growing and the volunteers based there currently receive many more emergency callouts than the career crew based at Kawerau.

Crews

It’s important that each truck is sufficiently crewed when called to attend a fire. Each career truck has a team of four, which include two fire fighters, a driver and one safety officer.

“The four together provide the ability to deal with an incident, but also provide a self-rescue capability,” says Jeff.

This means that while two are inside the building on fire, or dealing with a roadside incident, there are two outside who can go rescue the two firefighters if needed.

The safety officer is a role that a firefighter carries out at complex, hazardous or larger incidents as opposed to a dedicated person.

Jeff says that fire trucks have ended up going out from their stations with less than four on board.

“We have a minimum incident ground staffing and if it drops below that, we attach additional crews.”

As well as being able to field a full team to go out on the trucks, a station requires full crewing across each 24 hours for Greerton, Tauranga, Kawerau and Mount Maunganui stations.

“Each station has a single crew of four on each shift, so 18 on each station across four watches to maintain 24/7 crewing.

“Where we are not able to staff from within the Bay of Plenty District from those stations, we look outside, to Waikato and then Auckland.”

The 24/7 career fire fighters at Greerton, Tauranga, Kawerua and Mount Maunganui work 42 hours a week on the four-on four-off shift system.

“Things like sick leave, training courses, annual leave and vacancies are covered on overtime meaning most firefighters work more than 42-hour weeks.

“Most of my staff will do more than the 42 hours.”

Whanaungatanga Wellness Survey report

The NZ Professional Firefighters Union says the report of the Whanaungatanga Wellbeing Survey is grim reading with nearly one in three career firefighters meeting the criteria for one or more mental ill health indicators and Communication Centre dispatchers reporting the highest rates of mental health issues when compared to other roles in the organisation.

Communications Centre personnel and firefighters had the highest rates of probable PTSD and these rates increased with length of service.

Many employees reported frequent or high consumption of alcohol which can be a maladaptive coping strategy.

 In addition to the exposures to trauma through emergency response, the survey found only 6.6 per cent career firefighters felt supported by FENZ as an organisation.

The participants were surveyed on the exposures to trauma through emergency response, and the impact of organisational factors on their experiences at work.

The census survey was independently conducted online in March 2023 by Auckland University of Technology as part of the Whanaungatanga Programme.  The survey was open to FENZ employees 1736 participating including more than 70 per cent of firefighters and a high rate of Comms Centre staff participating.  The high response rate means the report is an analysis of one of the highest-quality data sets on the mental health of first responders internationally.

Safety, support and well-being

Fire and Emergency has a fatigue policy which outlines how they aim to prevent fatigue in the operational setting.

“We value the commitment and sacrifice of all our firefighters. Their safety and wellbeing is our top priority and we provide comprehensive support for them.”

Fire and Emergency provides free counselling, professional psychological support, peer support, dedicated wellbeing advisors and safety health and wellbeing advisors, a health monitoring programme, chaplaincy, and tikanga Māori-based services. Counselling is also available to immediate family members for any reason that they see fit.

“In addition, Fire and Emergency and the New Zealand Professional Firefighters’ Union are working together on a 12-month pilot, that started in late August, that will give career firefighters and communication centre personnel access to free and confidential psychological supervision sessions,” says Jeff.

Jeff says fatigue and psychological impacts, including stress have been identified as critical risks and are part of their critical risk programme. 

Recruitment of new firefighters

Recruitment of new staff for the Greerton, Tauranga, Kawerau, Mount Maunganui, Rotorua and Taupo stations would help see some of the fatigue and other risk factors decrease.

“Fire and Emergency is reviewing the staffing of all career fire fighter stations in the country looking to increase the number of fire fighters to reduce the reliance on over time,” says Jeff.

“The BOP District is likely to see increase in staffing ratios as a result of this process.”

It takes 12 months to recruit and train a career firefighter to a level of basic competence, and Fire and Emergency are running four courses a year at the National Training Centre, each with up to 25 trainees.

The latest group of recruit firefighters have just graduated this last fortnight, on Thursday, September 14, and are ready to begin work around the country.

“In addition, planning is underway to recruit around 230 extra firefighters over the next five years, which will be over and above the existing number of trainees.”