Source: Radio New Zealand
NZ army firefighters in live fire exercises at FENZ’s national training centre. Supplied / NZDF
Shipping containers in Rotorua that provide some of the only live firefighting training for new recruits are being replaced, after they were boycotted and shut on safety grounds months ago.
This week Fire and Emergency evaluated responses to a tender to replace the containers, saying this was better than trying to fix them, and until it had chosen a contractor it could not give a cost and timeframe.
Recruits have been shuttled to Auckland Airport’s live training site since trainers slapped a safety notice on the containers last September.
At the time, the acting manager who is also the union president, said the containers had warped over the years so were leaking toxic smoke during exercises that was a threat to recruits not kitted up outside.
FENZ said recruits had still been able to use two other live-fire facilities (compartments, and one to do with gas).
Live fire training at FENZ’s national training centre in Rotorua. Supplied / FENZ
The Professional Firefighters’ Union said not having the container facilities “is currently hindering these safe systems of work for firefighters” and fixing them must be a priority.
“The fact that FENZ has allowed the current live fire training facilities to deteriorate so much, to the state that they are not working is yet another sign of the organisation failure to spend money on frontline services,” said national vice-president Martin Campbell.
The containers had been expected to last 15 years and were 13 years old “and are now approaching the end of their practical asset life”, said FENZ.
Design had been done to get new ones that balanced “functionality, safety, and durability”.
The union has regularly criticised the state of FENZ’s fire trucks, stations, pay and conditions in an industrial dispute stretching on for months.
The Rotorua national training centre set up almost 20 years ago, houses the containers in a bigger building meant to contain the smoke and make it cleaner in a ‘reburner’, though the acting manager in November said the reburner had never worked well.
Live fire training at FENZ’s Woolston training centre, Christchurch. Supplied / FENZ
The tender said other parts of the training centre, which includes classrooms, must be able to keep operating while the work went on.
FENZ had struggled not just with Rotorua but with trying to fix leaking smoke at its South Island live-fire training centre at Woolston in Christchurch.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
