NZ fire services face major shake-up

A quarter of the 70,000 emergencies attended by firefighters each year are not fire-related.

The country's firefighting services are facing a major overhaul as the Government looks for new ways to fund a single organisation covering rural and urban brigades.

Fire services receive $265 million a year through a levy on property insurance, with the urban service taking $230 million and rural firefighting getting $35 million.

Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker said the country was too small for separate organisations and the present funding arrangement through insurance levies was unfair.

"We need to try to make it fairer."

The Insurance Council said the Fire Service should be financed by all New Zealanders and not just those who had insurance.

"The Fire Service is funded entirely by New Zealanders who are insured but used increasingly by New Zealanders who are not insured," said chief executive Chris Ryan.

Mr Barker also wants urban and rural firefighters to come under one organisation.

New Zealand has 11,000 volunteer firefighters, about 2000 paid firefighters and more than 85 groups under the National Rural Fire Authority.

"The [present] system results in uneven fire services being provided throughout the country," Mr Barker said.

"While sometimes this may be justified because of local conditions, in other cases it is unacceptable to New Zealanders that the same range and consistency of services is not available to all communities."

Firefighters now had wider roles and carried out an increasing amount of non-fire work - such as road accidents and dealing with storms and flooding - that was not recognised.

Fire Service figures show that a quarter of the 70,000 emergency incidents firefighters attend every year are not fire-related and most of those, around 12,500, are road accidents.

Mr Barker said existing fire legislation was outdated and changes were needed.

He has asked all parties to thrash out ideas at a workshop the Department of Internal Affairs will host in the next few weeks.

"At this meeting we'll make sure that everyone has the same information and we'll go through the details of a proposal, feature by feature, until we can reach a consensus."

Mr Ryan said: "The level of under-insurance in New Zealand is ... extreme in some areas.

"Some small communities affected by floods revealed under-insurance and non-insurance levels totalling almost half of their populations."

Professional firefighters and the United Fire Brigades Association have welcomed Mr Barker's comments.

Professional Firefighters Union president Mike McEnaney said not all communities were receiving an equal service.

Firefighters were not paid to attend car accidents and that needed to be addressed, he said.

"That's easy: you just place a fee or a levy on [vehicle] registration and ... that amount goes to attendance at motor vehicle accidents rather than just for fire."

Homeowners in Whangaparaoa and Orewa were paying the same levy as a property owner in central Auckland but receiving only a part-time service, with paid firefighters working during the day but volunteers covering nights and weekends.

Peter Guard, president of the fire brigades association, said: "We are particularly gratified that the issues of an integrated delivery of fire and rescue services and the continuing role of chief fire officers will be part of that process."