Whanganui fire truck breaks down on way to South Taranaki callout

A 37-year-old fire truck in Whanganui broke down while responding to an incident in Waitōtara on Tuesday. Photo / NZ Professional Firefighters' Union

A Whanganui fire truck broke down while responding to a callout in Waitōtara, South Taranaki, leaving the crew on the side of the road for hours.

The crew were called to reports of smoke in the Waitōtara area around 12.20pm on Tuesday.

A 37-year-old relief truck from Auckland was used to respond to the call because the station’s primary truck is being repaired.

The truck had a diesel supply issue and broke down on Great North Rd, according to Fire and Emergency New Zealand.

Whanganui firefighter James Oxtoby said it was not the first time the truck had broken down.

“It has had numerous issues where it has just died on us. This is the first time that it has died on the way to a call.”

While the truck was out of action, the station’s rescue tender vehicle was sent instead.

Oxtoby said that added up to 12 minutes to the response time.

“If that is a house fire, that is the big difference between life and death.”

The crew were stranded on Great North Rd for hours. Photo / NZ Professional Firefighters' Union

Off-duty firefighters, in between night shifts, were forced to cover the fire station, which Oxtoby said “ruins everybody’s day”.

“As soon as our two front-line trucks go down, we are always in trouble.”

If the rescue tender truck attended a call, it meant all of the equipment was out of town, which was dangerous if a car crash were to occur and the occupants needed to be pulled out, he said.

The truck was repaired within a matter of hours of breaking down and is now operational.

Oxtoby said firefighters “just want to provide for our communities”.

”We have an ageing fleet, and these trucks are going off the run all of the time. We want a good, stable and reliable fleet.

”It’s a daily issue. It puts us at risk, and it puts the community at risk.”

Fire and Emergency said a new truck had been delivered to Whanganui and would be operational in the coming months once crews were trained.

It said 47 trucks were currently on order nationwide, and 320 new vehicles had been put into service since 2017.

“Our firefighting truck fleet is an important asset, and Fire and Emergency is investing more than $20 million per year over the next three years on upgrades.”

The NZ Professional Firefighters Union has launched a petition for a public inquiry into Fire and Emergency, saying it has “failed to manage funding to ensure that it has the capacity and capability for reliable emergency response to the New Zealand public”.

Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.