National Headquarters
Fire and Emergency New Zealand
National Headquarters
Spark Central, Level 7
42-52 Willis Street
Wellington Central
Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 496 3600
30 October 2024
Ref: 16037
Sam I
[FYI request #28836 email]
Tēnā koe Sam
Thank you for your request of 20 October 2024, to Fire and Emergency New Zealand for the
following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA):
1. I would like to obtain an Incident Report for a multi-vehicle accident that occurred on
19/10/24 in Moerewa. (Names do not however need to be included in this report).
2. I would also like to obtain the audio recording of the LMR radio transmissions by Fire
appliances regarding Incident F4070396 (e.g. Sitreps, stop messages etc.)
Please find attached a copy of the SMS Incident Report (SMS Report). Some information has been
withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA, to protect the privacy of natural persons. In making this
decision, we have considered the public interest considerations in section 9(1) of the OIA.
We have also redacted the names of personnel involved with this incident and these have been
labelled as
out of scope in the attached PDF.
Please note the SMS Report provided to you is generated by Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s
electronic station management system. In SMS Reports, ‘Notifications’ and ‘Message Log’ fields
are reported in real time as fire crews and our communication centres communicate with each
other during the incident. They are not the official final records of incidents but word for word
transcripts of ‘live’ situations as they occur. They may contain spelling errors or commonly used
abbreviations.
In respect of your request for the audio recording of the Land Mobile Radio (LMR) transmissions
by fire appliances regarding incident F4070396, section 16 of the OIA provides that the
information you have requested should be provided to you in the way that you have asked (i.e.,
the audio recordings of the LMR). However, section 16(2) of the OIA allows Fire and Emergency to
provide the information in a different format to which you have requested it if we believe that
releasing the information in its original format would prejudice an interest protected by one of the
withholding grounds in the OIA.
In this instance, we consider that releasing some of the LMR transmissions in the format you have
asked for would itself prejudice an interest protected by section 9(2)(a) of the OIA. This is when
the LMR transmission contains personal information. Where this has applied, the SMS Report
attached provides a transcribed account of these LMR recordings.
In instances where an audio recording exists and does not contain personal information, we
provide these to you in full. There are ten files in total.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is availab
le at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
We trust that the information being provided is of assistance. If you require further information,
please email [FENZ request email].
Nāku noa, nā
Aidan Saunders
Manager, Information Requests
