One of Arrowtown’s longest-serving fire vollies says fulltime, professional firefighters will be needed in the Whakatipu, eventually.
Greg Potter’s recently been awarded his gold star for 25 years’ service with the Arrowtown fire brigade, ironically, nearing the end
of his 27th year.
Originally from Invercargill, Potter moved to Arrowtown about 40 years ago.
The former owner of the iconic Arrowtown Burger Bar, on Buckingham Street, joined the Arrowtown brigade about ’95, impressed by the work they were doing.
‘‘I’m a true believer you get out of your community what you put into it, and the boys were doing a great job — I used to watch them wash down the main street on New Year’s morning, doing the things you’d expect the council to do, and I just thought they … needed a hand.
‘‘Back in those days, they did a lot of work no one else would do; they were the go-to organisation, I suppose.’’
When he first joined, the majority of the brigade’s callouts were to fires and ‘‘a couple of car accidents’’.
Now, up to 40% of calls are to medical incidents and rescues — of late, e-bikes have been responsible for an increasing number of the latter.
There are now about nine volunteers trained on rope rescues, to go over cliffs and winch people to safety, about 12 are trained as first responders, and the brigade has two rural fire trucks, too.
‘‘I think it was 28 calls [a year] when I joined.
‘‘The best we’ve ever done is 230 — Queenstown/Frankton’s up around the 400 mark.
‘‘You can’t expect … employers to wear that, and volunteers to wear that.
‘‘They’re going to have to [introduce fulltime fireys].’’
Potter, 60, believes that will happen as the population here continues to grow, envisioning a larger Frankton station to house the professional fireys, with Arrowtown and Queenstown becoming satellite stations.
As to his most memorable moments with the brigade, the ones he can’t talk about because they were so distressing come to mind.
But there’ve been more than a couple of lighter moments, too.
Like the sign the fire brigade had to accompany their float in the Arrowtown Autumn Festival street parade several years ago: ‘The
hotter you are, the faster we come’.
‘‘We got in a wee bit of trouble from head office for that one … they didn’t see the humour in that,’’ he laughs.
‘‘The way we had it written, if you read that in Queen’s English, there’s nothing wrong with [it].’’
