New Zealand Fire Service
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| Name: | New Zealand Fire Service |
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| Motto: | "Service to the People" |
| Established: | 1st April 1976 |
| Paid Staff: | 1800+ |
| Volunteers: | 9,000+ |
| Stations: | 435 |
| Fleet Size: | 1300+ |
| Location: | New Zealand |
| Website | Official NZFS Website |
The New Zealand Fire Service (Whakaratonga Iwi in Maori) is the national body in New Zealand responsible for Fire Fighting and Emergency Service Response.
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[edit] Mission, Vision and Values
The New Zealand Fire Service has defined for itself a Mission, Vision and a Values statement which reflects their business:
Mission: To reduce the incidence and consequence of fire and to provide a professional response to other emergencies.
Vision: Working with communities to protect what they value.
Values: Serving our communities, Integrity, Adaptability, Skill, Comradeship.
The New Zealand Fire Service's key aims, as required by statute, are fire safety and fire prevention.
[edit] Strategic Direction
The New Zealand Fire Service Commission developed a statement of strategic direction in June 1999 which comprised 4 elements:
- Focus on fire prevention, fire safety and fire outcomes (This placed a greatly increased emphasis on fire prevention and fire safety while also working to improve the outcomes from traditional emergency response activities).
- Resource reallocation and 'value for money' expenditure (This aimed to appropriately resource the increased fire prevention and fire safety work. It also required all resourcing decisions to pass a risk-based 'best value for money' test).
- Best practise organisation (This aimed to achieve a culture of continuous improvement and reform in the Fire Service through constant exposure to best practise in general organisation).
- Strong Fire Service governance and management (This is to enable the Fire Service to: Deliver on its statutory mandate, Respond to the needs of all stakeholders, Become resilient to shocks through good risk management, Support the Government's emergency management reforms).
[edit] Legal Authority
The NZFS is somewhat unique, internationally, in that it has jurisdiction over the entire country with no division by region or city. It is the result of the New Zealand Fire Service Act (1975) which nationalised the various District-level brigades which had developed across the country.
[edit] Responsibility
The New Zealand Fire Service is predominantly configured as an Urban Fire & Rescue Service. The Fire Service Act places responsibility for Firefighting in defined Urban areas on the NZFS, with the remainder of New Zealand mainly covered by the National Rural Fire Authority.
(Note: The New Zealand Department of Conservation retain responsibility for firefighting within recognised National Parks. The New Zealand Defence Force remain responsible for all Defence Areas as defined through the Defence Act. The NZFS and NRFA together with these two agencies together form the majority of the firefighting capability in New Zealand, with the remainder provided by Industrial Fire Brigades (those run by commercial entities, for example Logging Companies or Airports).)
[edit] Legislative Changes
The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs is in the process of reviewing the Fire Service Act with the view of reconfiguring the way that the service is funded and organised.
The dual framework is poorly integrated and gives rise to confusion, for example, around who is responsible for fires in some areas. There are also shortcomings in the mandate to provide the wider rescue services currently provided by both systems. For example, there is no statutory provision for rural firefighters to attend non-fire incidents. These problems are compounded by funding and service level inequities - currently the New Zealand Fire Service (funded through an Insurance Levy) is relatively well funded and resourced when compared to the National Rural Fire Authority and its Rural Fire Forces which are funded through property Rates.
[edit] Structure
[edit] Central Government
The entire organisation reports to the Minister of Internal Affairs (currently the Hon Rick Barker), by way of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission. The Commission is composed of five members, and the Minister is required by law to appoint at least one person who is either a fire engineer or has experience as a senior operational fire fighter.
[edit] Chief Executive / National Commander
Beneath the Commission are the positions of Chief Executive and National Commander. Currently both positions are filled by Mike Hall, who was formerly the chief of the Queensland Fire Brigades. Where the Chief Executive does not have operational fire fighting experience, a separate National Commander is appointed to be the most senior operational fire fighter in the country. The National Commander may take control at a particularly serious incident, though this happens very rarely.
The Chief Executive has a number of direct reports, though these are concerned with matters such as human resources and finance rather than operational matters.
[edit] Chain of Command
The country is broken into eight fire regions, each in the charge of a Fire Region Commander. All FRC's report directly to the National Commander, and are promoted from the ranks of operational staff. An FRC may take control of a major incident, and is ultimately responsible for any incident at which they are present even if they are not the Officer-in-Charge.
Reporting to the Fire Region Commander and his Assistant, are the Chief Fire Officers of each fire district. These are the officers who are ultimately entrusted - via the Fire Service Act - with the powers that are exercised at the scene of an incident in order to 'deal with' the emergency. These powers are far-reaching - they provide authority to commandeer, demolish or destroy whatever is required in the course of their duties, given no more suitable options.
Each Chief Fire Officer (CFO) will have a number of Senior Station Officers (SSO's) or Station Officers (SO's) reporting to them. A typical career appliance will be crewed by a team of 4:
- Station Officer (SO) - In charge of the crew and the officer with the delegated authority of the CFO at any response.
- Senior Firefighter (SFF) - an SFF is an experienced firefighter who has passed some or all of the Station Officer training courses and is in a position to provide leadership in the absence of the Station Officer. Suitably qualified SFFs may stand in for an SO on a temporary basis.
- Firefighter (FF) - the baseline rank within the Fire Service.
An SSO may run in place of an SO as required or at their own discretion. In career districts the SSOs are strategically located to provide a more experienced command officer who is usually placed such that they are responded to most incidents of significance.
[edit] Role
The NZFS was originally designed and equipped as a Firefighting Service, as made obvious by their name. However the additional role - that of a Rescue agency - is now of greater significance. (In fact the success of the Fire Safety message being put across is that the incidence of 'other' responses (Rescue, etc) is now greater than that of Fire.)
Over and above firefighting, the New Zealand Fire Service provides first-response to essentially all emergency situations that are not otherwise handled by the New Zealand Police or a local Ambulance service. This has mainly come through necessity, but also because Firefighting equipment is often useful for the work involved.
Examples include:
- Road Crash Rescue - Extrication of entrapped persons in the aftermath of a motor vehicle accident
- High Angle Rescue - Rescue from the side of buildings; dangerous terrain (cliff faces, etc)
- Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) - The containment of a hazardous substance and decontamination of an environment or persons affected by a hazardous substance
- Natural Disasters - Addressing the problems caused by heavy rain and high winds (lifted roofing, power lines and trees down onto properties or across roadways, flooding)
- Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) - The New Zealand Fire Service is the lead agency for New Zealand USAR operations. They also manage three USAR Task Force level teams, providing communications and resources. Being the lead agency, the New Zealand Fire Service also coordinates the 17 NZ Response Teams which also provide light USAR support. All NZFS personnel have a baseline level of training in USAR techniques and many are actual USAR team members.
These additional areas of skill and expertise have led the NZFS to begin the process of rebranding; it is now actively promoted as being the New Zealand Fire and Rescue Service as this is seen as a more accurate representation of their role in the community. At a government level the much-expanded role of the New Zealand Fire Service has been recognised, and as such the Fire Service Act 1975 (the legislation under which the service operates) is currently under review, with a view to replacing the Act with newer legislation which better supports their work. [1]
[edit] Equipment
The equipment operated by the New Zealand Fire Service is typical of that run by most Fire Brigades world wide. In both Volunteer and Career districts a typical appliance will be equipped to respond primarily to Fires, having a supply of hoses, a Pump (either driven off the Appliance Motor or separately, depending on the pump configuration; most of NZ's mainstream appliances still use a single motor for both drive and pumping capability controlled via a special gearbox) and a combination of High and Low Pressure Deliveries.
Additional equipment carried may include:
- Standpipe and Bar for access to Fire Hydrants
- Suction Pumps and other equipment in order to gain access to water sources other than the Reticulated Supply
- Assorted Rescue Equipment - Hooligan Tools (aka Halligan Tool in the US), Axes, Sledgehammers (for use in burning buildings etc)
- Misc wooden lengths suitable for shoring up unstable structures
- First Aid Equipment including an AED
- Salvage Sheets or Groundsheets suitable for holding water in or out
- Portable Generator and Lighting equipment
- Ropes and Lines for use in High-Angle Rescue
- Additional assorted handtools
- Aluminium or Wooden Ladders (conventional type)
Trucks designated as Rescue Tenders (RT)'s will carry equipment suitable for Road Crash Rescue response:
- Hydraulic Spreaders
- Hydraulic Cutters
- Hydraulic Jacks
- Airbags (for lifting)
- Handtools to support / stand in for the above
Additional specialist appliances are usually strategically located in each fire district:
- Aerial Monitors
- "Snorkel" or other types of Elevating Platforms
- Ladders
- Hazardous Materials Response
- Command Vehicles
- Breathing Apparatus Tenders
- Hoselayers
- Lighting & Power Generation Units
- Foam Tenders
- Water Tankers
In New Zealand most designated Rescue Tenders are also Pumping Appliances, known as Pump-Rescue Tenders (PRTs) and may be responded for either requirement.
[edit] Communications
The NZFS works closely with the NZ Police in many respects - a key one of those is that the three Communications Centres which coordinate the Fire Service response across NZ are colocated with their Police Equivalents in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The radio network utilised by the Fire Service for its nationwide coverage is provided and supported by the Police, although most urban areas provide for an exclusive Fire-only radio channel or channels.
In rural areas, the channel may be shared between both services. Generally this is an OK arrangement, though when either the Police or the Fire Service are particularly busy in an area with shared radio services, this can cause the other service some grief. In contrast, the fact that Police have ready and direct access to the Fire Communications Centre is occasionally of some value in terms of inter-agency liaison.
At the scene of an incident, VHF or UHF simplex frequencies are generally used. These are usually common between NZFS, NRFA, DoC and NZDF firefighters and discrete from the Police. Access to shared liaison channels is also provided, allowing for Ambulance, Police, Fire and other resources (for example aircraft that may be called upon to assist in firefighting) to coordinate.
[edit] CIMS
The New Zealand Fire Service was one of the key developers of the Coordinated Incident Management System which is now in widespread use throughout the NZ Emergency Services environment. This provides for a common set of terminology and procedures which lends itself to multi-agency incidents.
[edit] Volunteers
The majority of the manpower available to the New Zealand Fire Service are volunteers who receive no payment for their time or labour. Paid firefighters are available in the main cities only, and in almost all cases are supplanted by volunteers from other urban and urban-fringe Fire Brigades.
Volunteer units within the NZFS organisation also provide support services over and above the role of the Firefighter; various Fire Police and Operational Support Units manned by volunteers are attached to Fire Districts and Brigades across NZ to provide assistance to firefighters (both paid and volunteer).
[edit] See also
- New Zealand Fire Service Website
- New Zealand Fire Service (& Commission) Structure as at 2003
- Official Information as at 2006
- New Zealand Legislation Online. (Browse 'Statues' under 'F' for the Fire Service Act 1975)
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