Bay of Plenty firefighters concerned after fire sirens silenced

Te Puke fire chief Glenn Williams said there will be strong resistance if they are told to turn their siren off. Photo / File

Some Bay of Plenty firefighters are now responding to emergencies via pager and cellphone after community complaints prompted the shutdown of their usual fire sirens.

The Bay of Plenty Times can reveal volunteer fire stations at Pāpāmoa have been operating without emergency sirens at night for at least a month.

At Ngongotahā, just north of Rotorua, the siren was turned off permanently about four months ago.

In Pāpāmoa, the crew have been operating without their siren at night as part of a three-month trial. Instead of relying on the siren, firefighters are alerted to emergencies through pagers and cellphones.

But concerns have been raised these methods are too slow and unreliable.

The future of Pāpāmoa's siren will be determined once the trial is reviewed.

Ngongotahā fire chief Tai Thompson said the system appeared to be working so far.

However, he still preferred the siren because "it is 100 per cent fail-safe, it definitely is."

Ngongotaha Fire Station is operating without a fire siren at night after complaints it was disturbing people. Photo / Andrew Warner

"You can have issues with the paging system with pagers not coming through to members depending on where they live, they might live in a blackspot.

"The fire siren also provides peace of mind for people."

Thompson said the siren was now considered to be a "back-up, back-up alert" if the first two options did not work. This has not been needed so far, he said.

"It was a directive by our area manager but it seems to be working all right," he said.

"If we don't have enough crew to turn up, we will activate the siren on a short cycle.

"We want to be accommodating to the community. My preference is to have it all of the time but we have to abide by the rules ... and we are an awesome brigade."

A spokesman for the Pāpāmoa volunteer brigade declined to comment, citing that the trial was ongoing.

Pāpāmoa fire station, in Parton Rd, is in the middle of a trial of operating without a fire siren at night. Photo / George Novak

Some Bay of Plenty volunteer firefighters, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they did not believe removing the siren was a good idea as other alert modes were "unreliable".

Some also expressed concern that such a significant change in operation had been made due to the complaints of one or two people believed to have recently moved into the area.

Last week, Te Puke fire chief Glenn Williams expressed his concern the brigade could be ordered to turn the siren off at night after a complaint was made that it was disturbing residents at night.

This week, Williams said he had been overwhelmed by the support of the community after publication of the story.

"If we were made to turn it off, our community wouldn't take it lying down."

A station's siren can be operated remotely from Auckland.

Williams reiterated his view that pagers and cellphones were not as reliable as the siren, which often sounded a minute, or more, before pagers and cellphones.

"Whether it's a fire or someone suffering a cardiac arrest, it's extremely crucial that we get a crew dispatched as soon as possible," Williams said.

Williams said they had a system in place that allowed them to see how many people were heading to the station after the alert was sent out.

This was because once the pager went out, firefighters had to press a button to say if they were responding or not.

He said it was usually within three minutes of the first firefighters arriving that they made the call whether to sound the siren or not, depending on whether numbers looked low.

Questions were put to Fire and Emergency New Zealand, including asking for a response to concerns pagers and cellphones were not reliable; concerns about new residents moving near a station then complaining about it; and also how Fire and Emergency New Zealand balanced complaints with the need to alert firefighters to emergencies.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand region manager Dave Guard said in a written statement that sirens were used so volunteers could respond "in a timely way".

Te Puke fire chief Glenn Williams said there will be strong resistance if they are told to turn their siren off. Photo / File

Turning off the siren at night for the Pāpāmoa and Ngongotahā stations was made possible due to a "robust primary alerting system" involving both pagers and cellphones, he said.

"We will act on complaints about the noise of sirens where we can, assessing these on a case-by-case basis. However, we do need to ensure our volunteers can respond to their community's calls for help."

Other Bay of Plenty and Central Lakes stations already operating without sirens are Tauranga, Kawerau, Mount Maunganui, Taupō, Rotorua and Greerton.

However, these were career or paid stations.

This meant they had firefighters on-site 24/7, unlike volunteer stations such as Pāpāmoa, Ngongotahā and Te Puke.

A resident of Oxford in North Canterbury, Cassandra Walker, told NZME her town was remote and relied on the volunteer crew a lot because it was "quite a distance away" from the next-nearest station.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said at the time removing the siren was about reducing noise and inconvenience for the community.

Last week, residents in Oxford started a petition to keep the siren ready for activation overnight after it was changed to only sound at night if services did not respond within three minutes.

Stuff reported yesterday that the community's voice had been heeded and FENZ had decided the siren would be returned to its original system after discussions with community leaders.