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
11 March 2025
Ref: 16918
Sam I
[email address]
[FYI request #29892 email] Tēnā koe Sam
Thank you for your request(s) of 27 January 2025, to Fire and Emergency New Zealand, requesting
information relating to the Mangawhai Natural Disaster incident. Your request has been
considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) and our response is below.
1. I would like to obtain ALL incident reports relating to the Mangawhai Natural Disaster
incident on the 26/1/25.
Please find attached, as an
Appendix to this response, the SMS incident reports (SMS Reports)
relating to this incident. 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 Reports provided to you are 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. I understand that brigades outside of Northland were attached to the call e.g. Papatoetoe,
I would also like to know why Papatoetoe was attached to the overall incident.
Papatoetoe (PAPA348 – technical rescue tender) were attached based on information received
during several incidents including large trees falling into properties, a cabin crashing into a
motorhome and roof collapses. They were also first on scene to a medical event.
3. I would like to know the alert level of the overall incident and why?
We have interpreted
alert level to be alarm levels. All incidents have their own alarm level and we
can advise that they were all alarm level 1. As there was no overall alarm level for the incidents,
this aspect of your request is refused under section 18(e) of the OIA, as the document alleged to
contain the information requested does not exist.
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
