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
2 March 2026
Ref: 20368
Mark Grayson
[FYI request #33320 email]
Tēnā koe Mark
We refer to your request of 18 December 2025 to Fire and Emergency New Zealand requesting the
following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA):
1. Provide the incident report and any emails that relate to the Hahei Line Rescue incident in
January 2025 where helicopter air transport for Fire and Emergency was refused by New
Zealand Police. The incident number is F4125505.
2. Provide the incident report and any emails for a Line Rescue incident at Arkles Bay in
November 2025. The incident number is F4355942.
3. Provide the incident report and any emails for a Line Rescue incident at Musick Point in
June 2025. The incident number is F4226075.
4. Provide a spreadsheet for all "Level 3 Line Rescue" incidents that Fire and Emergency New
Zealand responded to since 01 January 2025. This should include incident number, location
and type of rescue.
Thank you for your correspondence with us on 15 January 2026 where you refined your requests
for any emails relating to each incident to only those emails involving the relevant District
Leadership Team, Communications Centre, and the Executive Leadership Team.
Please find attached, as
Appendix One to this response, the SMS Incident Report (SMS Report) in
relation to incident F4125505 and any emails we identified held by the relevant District Leadership
Team, Communications Centre, and the Executive Leadership Team.
Please find attached, as
Appendix Two to this response, the SMS Report in relation to incident
F4355942 and any emails we identified held by the relevant District Leadership Team,
Communications Centre, and the Executive Leadership Team. You wil see the SMS Report is not
yet complete. However, we have decided to release the report to you in its current form. It is
possible that information in the report may change, or more information may be added, before a
final version is generated.
Please note that we did not identify any emails involving the specified parties in relation to
incident F4355942. Therefore, we are refusing this aspect of your request under section 18(e) of
the OIA, as the document al eged to contain the information requested does not exist or, despite
reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found.
Please find attached, as
Appendix Three to this response, the SMS Report in relation to incident
F4226075 and any emails we identified held by the relevant District Leadership Team,
Communications Centre, and the Executive Leadership Team.
Please find attached, as
Appendix Four to this response, a document detailing all Level 3 Line
Rescue incidents between 1 Jan 2025 and 18 Dec 2025.
Some information has been withheld from the appendices 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, to 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.
In making this decision, we have considered the public interest considerations in section 9(1) of
the OIA. We have also redacted some information from the emails that is out of scope of your
request and the names of personnel involved with the incidents from the SMS Reports. Where this
has occurred, we have labelled the information as
out of scope in the attached PDFs.
Please note the SMS Reports provided to you are generated by Fire and Emergency’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. This means that they may contain spelling errors or commonly used abbreviations.
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
