National Headquarters
Fire and Emergency New Zealand
National Headquarters
Spark Central, Level 7
42-52 Wil is Street
Wel ington Central
Wel ington 6011
Phone +64 4 496 3600
13 December 2024
Ref: 16320
Mark Grayson
[FYI request #29219 email]
Tēnā koe Mark
Thank you for your request of 15 November 2024, to Fire and Emergency New Zealand requesting
information in relation to a fire in Huntly on 9 November 2024, under the Official Information Act
1982 (OIA).
Thank you for your correspondence with us on 18 November 2024, where you advised you do not
require the names or contact details of our staff or volunteers. Where these appear in the
attached appendices, they have been labelled as
out of scope. We copy and respond to each
aspect of your request below.
1. Incident Report for F4083978;
Please find attached, as
Appendix One to this response, a copy of the SMS Incident Report (SMS
Report). Some information has been withheld from the SMS Report under section 9(2)(a) of the
OIA, to protect the privacy of natural persons.
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.
2. Total number of 111 calls made for this incident;
There were four 111 calls received that related to this incident.
3. Audio recordings of all related 111 calls;
We consider emergency calls received by Fire and Emergency to be subject to a high obligation of
confidence. We consider that there would be a chilling effect if callers were aware that recordings
of their phone calls may be made public without their consent. Callers may be less forthcoming
with the information they provide to Fire and Emergency or may simply choose not to call.
For this reason, we have decided to withhold the recordings of all 111 calls in full under section
9(2)(ba)(i) of the OIA, to protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence, where
the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the supply of similar
information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that such
information should continue to be supplied.
4. Audio recordings of all related radio messages;
Please find attached, as
Appendix Two to this response, all recordings of radio traffic for this
incident. Where the names of individuals have appeared in the recordings, we have transcribed
them, which you will find attached as
Appendix Three.
5. Total number of volunteers who responded to this incident;
A total of 30 volunteer firefighters attended this incident.
6. Total number of communications staff who were on duty at the time of this incident;
The total number of communications staff on duty were three shift managers and 11 dispatchers.
7. Any communications (E.G. Teams, Emails, Messaging) related to this incident;
Please find attached, as
Appendix Four to this response, all communications identified as relating
to this incident. Some information has been withheld under the following:
• section 9(2)(a) of the OIA, to protect the privacy of natural persons; and
• section 9(2)(g)(i) of the OIA, maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the
free and frank expression of opinions by or between or to Ministers of the Crown or
members of an organisation or officers and employees of any public service agency or
organisation in the course of their duty.
8. What is the standard, or required timeframe that Fire and Emergency resources have to
respond?;
Our Statement of Performance Expectations (SPE) details our performance measures for
responding crews and communications centres. It can be found online
here. Pages 50-57 provide
further detail.
Our volunteers have an 11-minute target response time for arriving at a fire incident in an urban
setting.
9. Is there any fol ow up process that may be initiated by either the crews or the
Communications Centres, in order to dispatch the next nearest resources?;
Yes, our normal process is to dispatch the nearest resources when required.
10. Is there a performance measuring standard (such as KPIs) that Fire and Emergency use in
either the organisational operations or in the Communications Centres?;
Please see our reply to question 8. The SPE also contains information about performance
measures for our Communications Centres.
11. Is there a lack of Fire and Emergency resources or operational coverage in the Huntly
township?;
Huntly Volunteer fire brigade is well resourced. They have two modern appliances, a tanker, and a
brigade ute. Membership is also at 100 percent establishment.
12. Does Fire and Emergency accept that this incident was a failure, or did not meet the
expected standards with regard to the operations and commitment to the Fire and
Emergency Act 2017?
We consider this to be a request for an opinion. The primary purpose of the OIA is to allow
requesters to seek information that is
held by an agency. It is not a mechanism for requesters to
seek an agency’s explanation or opinion. These are not covered by the OIA as they are considered
the creation of new information. However, in terms of the SPE measures described above, our
response did not meet Fire and Emergency’s target response time for volunteer brigades.
In making the above decisions, we have considered the public interest considerations in section
9(1) of the OIA.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available
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
