Firefighters often fail to save people's lives because they cannot reach burning homes fast enough, say officials.
An Internal Affairs briefing paper to the new Government has urged it to carry out a complete review of the Fire Service that would consider placing more emphasis on fire prevention.
However, itwarns that the review could upset industrial relations with firefighters and be time-consuming and controversial, especially if it suggested that firefighters could not save people.
The briefing says firefighters are relatively unable to save lives these days because of the speed and ferocity of fires in modern homes. This means that people can die within two minutes, well before the service's target response time of seven minutes in 90 per cent of cases.
The president of the Professional Firefighters Union, Mike McEnaney, said the argument had been used to try to reduce staffing when Roger Estall chaired the Fire Services Commission.
He agreed that people caught in the room where a fire started could die within two minutes but said firefighters often saved people in other rooms of the house.
"You've got even less chance of survival if you cut your staff and your operational capability so you can't get there until well after seven minutes."
Mr McEnaney said the delay was made worse by an inefficient 111 system, which meant it often took three minutes for a fire engine even to leave the station.
Internal Affairs Minister Mark Burton described the briefing paper comment as "an unhelpful analysis."
Everyone agreed fire prevention should be a top priority, he said, but the service needed to maintain its ability to fight fires "because with our best efforts they will still happen."
