Queenstown and Arrowtown volunteer fireys were rushed off their feet last year.
The Queenstown brigade recorded a staggering 495 call-outs last year, up from 377 in 2022 — a 31% increase.
And chief fire officer Terry ‘Flick’ O’Connell believes that figure should be over 500, to account for times they’re called out for medical incidents only to be turned back, sometimes before even leaving the station.
The smaller Arrowtown brigade had 231 call-outs last year, up from 140 the year before — an increase of 64%.
On the other hand, the Frankton brigade recorded similar numbers both years — 244 in 2022 and 259 last year.
While population growth and the return of visitors probably fuelled those higher Queenstown and Arrowtown call-out numbers, O’Connell says his brigade’s high number of false alarms — 287 — was ‘‘a pain in the butt’’.
‘‘And the way they report the alarms, that tally would be a lot higher — if a smoke detector goes off and it’s smoke that’s caused it, that can be classed as a structure fire.’’
O’Connell says he’s talking to Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) about the issue — ‘‘and they’re going to do some work with us around it’’.
He estimates each false alarm call-out takes about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, a feature of Arrowtown’s tally last year was 100 medical call-outs — it’s designated as a medical first-response brigade due to its distance from Frankton’s St John ambulance station.
With Whakatipu call-out numbers increasing, New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union boss Ian Wright last year said this area needs, in addition to the vollies, a crew of 28 pro fireys operating out a new Frankton station.
‘‘Volunteers are the lifeblood of the community,’’ he told Mountain Scene.
‘‘However [Fenz] understands the amount of time it takes, and they rely on the goodwill of the volunteers and their families and employers for ever-increasing call-outs and time away from work.’’
O’Connell accepts the call-out figures could create pressure for full-time fireys, ‘‘but the volunteers, they want to do it, they love being of help to the community’’.
Of note from last year’s tallies is only 72 Queenstown call-outs and 40 Arrowtown call-outs were for actual fires.
Arrowtown fire chief Murray Forward says gone are the days ‘‘when we were just fighting fires’’.
