Two generations of a Queenstown family will be recognised at a special awards evening in the resort on tonight for their, combined, 75 years’ service to the Whakatipu fire service.
Stu Ide, 71, will receive his double-gold star for 50 years’ service, in his 51st year, while his son, Mike, will receive his medal for 25 years’ service, primarily at Frankton.
Additionally, Frankton vollie Karl Argyle will also be recognised for 25 years’ service.
Stu and Mike are actually the fourth and fifth generations of firefighters in their family — Stu’s great-grandfather was the first of his generation in New Zealand, after arriving from England to Port Chalmers.
His grandfather on his mother’s side, Nicholas Hoskins, followed suit, and then his dad, Peter Ide, was a professional firefighter in Invercargill.
Stu grew up at the fire station flats there, and while he completed his apprenticeship as a watchmaker and lasted two years as assistant manager at a store in Invercargill, ‘‘that wasn’t for me’’.
First joining as a vollie in 1971, he became a professional firey in ’75, before transitioning into fire safety about 25 years ago, initially in Invercargill, then in Queenstown.
While a large part of the job was fire investigations, which he retired from in 2018, he’s still an active volunteer, largely working on operational training for the Frankton brigade, and running school Firewise programmes and fire safety promotions, as required.
‘‘My take on promoting fire safety is you’ve got to have it out there, in front of every face, all the time.
‘‘Spending many thousands of dollars on a few ads on TV and hoping it all goes away doesn’t actually work.
‘‘You’ve got to just keep at it and putting it under people’s noses so they understand, actually, fire is quite dangerous.’’
He’s noticed a huge decrease in house fires since smoke alarms in homes were made mandatory in 2003 — the rule of thumb, for the fire service, is five smoke alarms in a three-bedroom house: one in each bedroom, the hallway and lounge.
‘‘It’s as simple as that, and they’re cheap as chips.’’
Meantime, his son, Mike, joined the Frankton brigade as a volunteer when he was about 18 or 19, and last year moved to Wellington, where he’s now a professional firey with Wellington’s Kilbirnie Fire Station.
They weren’t meant to get their service awards on the same night, because they’re technically in ‘‘opposite years’’ for the Queenstown and Frankton Volunteer Fire Brigades’ annual awards, but because last year’s awards were put off due to Covid, Stu’s getting his medal a year late.
‘‘It’s lovely Mike can be there with me and we can both receive a medal,’’ he says.
‘‘I’m just so proud of him, he’s done a lot of volunteer work in the fire service at Frankton and he’s done well, so it’s just nice he and I can do that together.’’
Quarter-century marked
Long-time Whakatipu volunteer firey Karl Argyle will also be acknowledged on Saturday night, receiving his gold star for 25 years’ service.
Argyle first joined the Queenstown brigade in 1995 after some encouragement from three mates.
‘‘I was panelbeating at the time, and I know my way around cars.
‘‘Back then, motor vehicle accidents were just becoming part of the fire service’s trade, and all the cutting gear they had was hand-held hydraulics, same as what we had at the panel shop, [so] I just slipped straight into that side.
‘‘I didn’t actually join to fight fires, I joined to cut people out of cars.’’
The engineer spent 11 years at Queenstown, two in Invercargill and has now been with the Frankton brigade for the past 12 years.
While achieving his gold star is a ‘‘milestone’’, it’s also a chance to reflect on the friendships he’s made through the fire service, people he’s met, and helped, he says.
Getting on top of The World Bar fire
One of the most memorable fire investigations Stu Ide completed was The World Bar fire in May, 2013.
Forty-six firefighters and several appliances, including an aerial ladder truck summoned from Invercargill, spent three hours fighting the fire, which consumed the wooden building on Shotover Street and billowed thick smoke across the resort.
It started in the downstairs Fat Badger’s pizzeria about 3.30pm — Ide says he’s still grateful it happened when it did.
‘‘Had that fire been at 2am or 3am, with The Word Bar humming, we could have had quite a different result.’’
While he knew where the fire started, in Fat Badgers’ deep fat vat fryer, a large part of the investigation centred on how it got to the top floor so quickly.
Ide found it spread up a duct and raged through The World Bar’s roof, over firefighters’ heads.
‘‘I was quite chuffed with how the cause came out, and nobody argued with me on that one,’’ he quips.
