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Home / Sponsored Stories

The fire chief who's seen it all

8 Dec, 2016 04:00 PM
Miles Shelley. Photo / Supplied.

Miles Shelley. Photo / Supplied.

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About 120,000 Kiwis start work before 6am, about 5 per cent of our workforce. This series, arranged by Fonterra, salutes the ‘Early Risers’ – people who, like farmers, start the day when the rest of us still think it’s night.

Miles Shelley - fire chief, ambulance driver, fixit man, local benefactor and Ngatea identity - knows it generally means trouble when the phone rings in the wee small hours.

Shelley, 57, has been in the Ngatea Volunteer Fire Brigade since he was 16. He remembers it happening this way: "The fire truck roared past and my dad said to me, 'why don't you get off your arse and do something useful?' So I did..."

He's been doing something useful ever since. Though it has to be said one person's "useful" is the next man's horror story.

In those 41 years, Miles has seen it all - plane crashes, car crashes, truck crashes, house fires, grass fires, deaths, narrow escapes and bits of human beings in places where they shouldn't be; a litany of human misery.

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But ask him what he remembers most about all those years in the emergency services and one of the first things he recalls is when a model aeroplane was stuck in a tree, too high for ladders to support rescuers. So Miles did the next best thing - he sent firemen up the ladders to shoot the marooned models out of the trees with fire hoses.

He also recalled the real plane crashes - often topdressers making unscheduled landings and, on a couple of occasions, unscheduled exits from this life; a hang glider who had a fatal collision with a farm fence.

Ngatea and the Hauraki Plains are home to State Highways 2 and 27, with long straight sections which should be plain sailing for motorists but are often anything but.

"We have had 110 call-outs so far [in 2016, involving all incidents, not just car crashes]," he says. "That's quite a lot for a small branch out here. You get a lot of call-outs in the early hours...it can be 10pm or 2am, you never know."

Accidents the volunteer fire brigade attends are, Miles reckons, about 40-50 per cent tourists or out-of-towners just passing through.

Tourists, he says, are particularly at risk. Speed and fatigue are the biggest faults in many car crashes in the area. While he recommends rest spells while driving, he feels calls to road-test tourists' driving ability are misguided.

"Most of them would easily pass a driving test," he says. "But people don't realise how easy it is to be distracted - maybe just with a conversation in the car - and suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the road. The body and the mind often revert to what they have been trained to do; it can happen to anyone."

As if being fire chief doesn't keep him busy enough, Miles is also an ambulance driver for one night a week: "It's a matter of priority. You are supposed to be the first responder and the brigade now has 24 volunteers, so the chances of not having enough people to staff the fire truck are remote."

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He wears other hats. His is a dairy farming background so he knows all the Fonterra farmers in the region (and many more); he's known throughout the region as co-owner and workshop boss of Hauraki Plains Motors - a fixture since 1926. If it is farming equipment, they can fix it - everything from quad bikes to balers, cultivators and feed wagons.

The company also sponsors calf clubs, is a sponsor of the Hauraki Plains Rural Show and supports the Ngatea Rugby & Sports Club.

So Miles knows a vast number of people in the region - a boon but also a worry in that it can be tough if someone he knows is caught up in the tragic episodes witnessed by the fire and ambulance services.

"Some people can't hack it," he says, of volunteers who see first-hand and up close the accidents that befall people. "There are so many bad accidents and some just have to give it away - and we always understand that; it's not for everyone."

But even the battle-hardened have to have a release and Miles says black humour - common in the police and emergency services - is a handy defence mechanism: "It's healthy...the big thing about the fire brigade is that it's a bit like a rugby club. The camaraderie is huge and it's good for us.

"When you've been out on a job, it's hard to get back to sleep. You get used to being tired though you might get a chance to have a catch-up [sleep]. But I'm lucky, I don't have a problem [coping with lack of sleep]."

He is also protective of young people coming into the service - and makes sure they are introduced carefully to some of the difficulties of volunteer work: "They usually don't like the bad stuff; they don't go up and have a look as a rule - so it's up to us to bring them up slowly and get them used to things through experience."

It's a rule extended to his son Adam, also in the brigade, and the next generation, four-year-old grandson Corey - who is busting his little boiler to be in the fire brigade.

"He thinks he's ready now," laughs Miles, "He's always got to come down the station with me and when there's a call-out, he hangs round the door at home wearing his uniform."

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