Fire and Emergency on Port Hills fires report: 'We need to improve'

A lack of co-operation between fire agencies and decisions made on the ground contributed to the Port Hills fires raging out of control earlier this year, according to an investigation.

Firefighters could have done better when responding to the Port Hills fires, the review has found.

The then New Zealand Fire Service (NZFS) and National Rural Fire Authority commissioned an independent operational review of the event to learn from their response.

The focus of the review, conducted by Alan Goodwin of the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authority Council (AFAC), was to make recommendations on how the newly established Fire and Emergency New Zealand would carry out its duties in the future.

"The review found that while firefighters from across the agencies did a lot of things well there are areas we need to improve," Fire and Emergency chief executive Rhys Jones said.

"The Port Hills fires were one of the biggest and most complex in New Zealand's history.

"We accept the review's findings and have developed an action plan to set out how we will respond to meeting each of the recommendations," Jones said.

The action plan focuses on three main outcomes, Jones says. Improving how firefighters and the incident management team operate and work together, the safety of firefighters, and keeping the community at the "heart of our work before, during and after an incident".

"Fire and Emergency New Zealand has brought together urban and rural firefighters from 38 different fire agencies into one organisation under one piece of legislation.

"The main difference is, next time, it will be one organisation responding to the fire.

"The lessons from these fires and this review will be help us build our new organisation into one that serves our communities best."

Jones wanted to acknowledge those who lost so much as a result of the fires and wanted to thank the efforts of all involved.

"I also want to thank all firefighters, emergency responders, support personnel and community volunteers who worked tirelessly in very difficult conditions to keep Christchurch safe."

Jones, and Selwyn District Mayor Sam Broughton, expressed sympathy to the family of helicopter pilot Steve Askin who died in the fire.

Rural Fire manager Richard McNamara, an aviation fire specialist who became incident controller after three days of the blaze, said it was a fire "unprecedented in New Zealand in terms of its impact".

Nine homes were lost in the blaze that spread across 1600ha.

Jones said he met those families last night and briefed them on the report and talked about some of the issues that caused damage to their homes.

The fire moved faster than you could run, Jones said, and had the power of three atomic bombs.

The scale and ferocity of the fire meant decisions were made with safety as the main priority not just for the community but those fighting the fires as well.

"Sometimes that led to unfortunate circumstances where some houses were left in the path of the fire because they had the safety of the responders as the first consideration," Jones said.

He accepted that mistakes were made, particular around communication, but the aim of the report was what lessons could be learned.

It was especially important because a major fire like the Port Hills blaze will happen again, Jones said.

Climate change is affecting New Zealand and it will bring fires close to cities and rural towns in the future.

The July 1 creation of Fire and Emergency New Zealand which created one command system by merging the country's rural, urban, career and volunteer fire services will mean just one organisation will respond to future fires.

With summer approaching, Fire and Emergency is going through rehearsals now and trying to identify risks in each community and putting in contingency plans.

Jones said they were engaging with individual communities about the risks and how they could be reduced, by cutting back vegetation and ensuring safety processes in place.

Asked if some properties could have been saved, McNamara said he fully accepted the recommendations, but added that the firefighters on the ground worked as hard as they ever have to try and stem the fire.

He also said he would "never trade bricks and mortars for lives".

Difficult calls had to be made on when to commit and when to bring his people out, he said.

Jones said they had apologised to two families in particular and accepted that mistakes had been made.

The availability of helicopters once the fire broke out was noted, given that 15 choppers from the city were using monsoon buckets to help clear landslides at Kaikoura caused by the November 14 earthquake months before.

McNamara said Fire and Emergency was now talking with helicopter companies to work out plans for the future.