Yesterday afternoon I walked up Onehunga Mall on my way to a walk around Cornwall Park, and was startled to see a sign up on the Onehunga Fire Station doors announcing they were: Closed Today. No Staff.  

I’ve been strolling, running, and driving past this Fire Station for 15 years, and I’ve never seen this before. Normally you get a friendly wave. Yesterday, the doors to the station were covered in signs about the #firecrisis and being understaffed for 9 days.  

On June 12th the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union announced firefighters would go on a partial strike after a year of negotiations with Fire and Emergency New Zealand had stalled. It’s important to note this strike action is largely behind-the-scenes and doesn’t affect firefighters, who will continue to respond to fires and emergencies.  

Being on strike is not the reason both the Remuera and Onehunga stations were short staffed yesterday, but it is one reason why the NZPFF are striking. They claim Fire and Emergency NZ haven’t employed enough staff and as a result trucks are being taken off-line, unsafe short crews are having to keep trucks going, and firefighters are at times doing up to 100 hours a week to keep the trucks going.  

This is of course the extreme end of things. But when I did talkback about this a few weeks ago on Kerre Woodham mornings, most firefighters or families of firefighters who called in said they were facing burnout from the overtime required to keep services afloat. 

The firefighters are fighting for increased pay, mental health and wellbeing support, and recognition of the high risk of contracting specific cancers due to exposure to carcinogens at fires. Considering the nature of the job, this seems reasonable to me. Responding to medical emergencies, motor vehicle incidents, search and rescue, civil defence, natural disaster responses and, of course, fires must make for a strenuous and emotionally challenging job at times.  

Our fire service, which is mostly funded by the Fire Levy we pay, is 85% volunteers, and they do an incredible job. I’ve picked up on a little tension between the volunteers and career fire fighters, but we need both sectors of the service to be working to the best of their ability.  

An understaffed station without the staff for a day-shift doesn’t give me confidence FENZ is functioning as it should be.  

This is an Auckland wide problem that’s also affecting Parnell, Titirangi, and Birkenhead stations as well. A systemic issue that stems from a historic lack of funding? Maybe. Vaccine Mandates don’t help either right. But whatever the problem, it’s time to fix it and fix it properly.