Mark Deacon, John Wyllie, Jodi Purdie, Grant Scothern and Karl Simmons from Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade won the team trophy at the United Fire Brigades' Association of NZ National Drivers’ Challenge
Mark Deacon, John Wyllie, Jodi Purdie, Grant Scothern and Karl Simmons from Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade won the team trophy at the United Fire Brigades' Association of NZ National Drivers’ Challenge
Emergency calls as at August 19: 196
Congratulations to our brigade team whot won the 2024 UFBA Driver’s Challenge, with Grant Scothern finishing third individually.
It has been a really busy fortnight, with 19 calls.
There were six false alarms, including a fog cannon activation at Te PukeJewellers and a manual call point activation at Te Puke High School that resulted in a whole-school evacuation, the response of both our trucks plus one from Mount Maunganui as potential back-up.
We had three fires - a suspicious car fire in Malyon St, one control vegetation burn and a call to stand-by for an incident at McDonald’s restaurant.
Te Puke's Grant Scothern finished third in the 2024 UFBA Drivers' Challenge.
There have also been four motor vehicle crashes, all out of town, with three not requiring us in the end. The other was on the Tauranga Eastern Link Toll Road and resulted in both our trucks, plus Maketū and Pāpāmoa brigades responding, with one patient being extricated from a vehicle.
We have had five medical calls to assist St John Ambulance and lastly, one of our trucks responded to a joint training exercise at Pāpāmoa College involving volunteer crews from Pāpāmoa, Te Puke, Tauranga, Greerton and Mount Maunganui.
Earlier this year we finished construction of our new shed at the rear of the fire station.
This project was only possible thanks to the huge support of our community.
We are holding an open day at the station and an opening ceremony to recognise that support.
Where: Te Puke Fire Station
When: Saturday, August 31, 2024
Schedule: Station Open Day 10am-2pm. Shed opening 11am.
We encourage all members of the community to come along, view the fire station and resources as well as interact with our brigade members.
Children are welcome as we will have some activities for kids as well as fire safety messages for the general public and the obligatory sausage sizzle. We look forward to seeing everybody there.
