Auckland fire chiefs have done an about-turn on a new policy of
sending fewer aerial trucks to fires , after a suspicious inner
city blaze nearly cost lives.
More than 30 residents, many of them elderly and disabled
ex-sailors, had to be evacuated after fire broke out in the
Seafarers Centre on Quay Street on saturday morning..
The Fire Service was alerted at 5.14am to a blaze at the seven-storey centre, which has no sprinklers. Three minutes later, the first fire truck with a ladder, key to evacuating people from heights, arrived.
"The fire alarms went off, the smoke detectors went off. I went out to find whatever it was and the place was filling up with smoke," says manager Eddie Harris.
As part of Auckland's new city-wide policy, only one aerial unit is to be sent when a fire alarm is triggered.
In this case, it took a full 11 minutes for a second unit with a ladder to arrive. That left 18 residents, some elderly and disabled, perched on the roof waiting to be saved, after mattresses blocked an alternative exit.
Irish tourist Michael Byrne says he was on the roof for about 20 minutes before the ladder came up. Ten others had to be helped out and two men were treated at hospital for smoke inhalation.
The Professional Firefighters Union says the minutes lost getting the second ladder there could have cost lives.
"It would mean the difference between being alive or dead," says Boyd Raines of the union. "You try holding your breath for a couple of minutes in a smoke-filled or hostile environment. I suggest you'd fall over and that would be your last breath."
The union is accusing Auckland fire bosses of cheque book risk management, after last month's move to cut the number of aerial units going to fire alarms by half.
The reason was that 83% of inner city call outs are false alarms and each aerial unit costs $50,000 a year to run.
On Friday, Auckland Regional Fire Commander Brian Butt was defending the policy as safe.
"Ninety nine percent of the time sprinklers put out the fires in sprinklered buildings. There is no need for the response of the aerials in the same capacity as we provide at the moment," he said.
On Saturday afternoon though there was a backdown. Auckland's fire chief has told ONE News he is ditching the new scaled-down policy, and after this latest blaze, two aerial units instead of one will now attend fires like this, as a matter of first response.
