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
19 February 2026
Ref: 20494
Harwood Wilson
[FYI request #33484 email]
Tēnā koe Harwood
We refer to your request of 10 January 2026 to Fire and Emergency New Zealand requesting
information relating to a fire that occurred in Pakuranga on 9 January 2026. Your request has been
considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), and we respond to each aspect of your
request, below.
1. Facebook social media - Facebook post published at approximately 12:49pm on Friday, 9
January 2026.
a. Copies of all internal communications relating to this post, across all digital
formats (including text messages, emails, messaging platforms, and phone calls).
b. For phone calls, please provide the date, time, and participants.
c. The name(s) of the person(s) who requested or proposed this post.*The name(s) of
the person(s) who approved or signed off on the release of this post.* * I only
require the names of persons at management or executive level.
Please find attached, as
Appendix One to this response, communications specifically relating to
the social media post. Of note, the text message exchange on pages 1 and 2 are between Megan
Stiffler (Deputy Chief Executive, Operational Response/Deputy National Commander) and Kerry
Gregory (Chief Executive/National Commander).
Some information has been withheld from the
Appendix under the fol owing sections of the OIA:
• 9(2)(a), to protect the privacy of natural persons; and
• 9(2)(g)(i), 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.
Some information that is embedded within our release to you is outside the of scope of your
request and does not relate to the requested information. Where this has occurred, it wil be
labelled as
out of scope. We also note that we have redacted personnel that are below
management or executive level as
out of scope.
We can advise there was no written correspondence regarding the drafting of the social media
post prior to the post being published. This is because al communications were done verbal y. We
can advise however, a Teams message at 12.30pm on 9 January 2026 was sent by a senior media
advisor to a social media advisor requesting assistance at the National Coordination Centre (NCC).
During this time the senior media advisor also telephoned a communications and engagement
advisor supporting this work to start drafting a press release, which eventual y became the social
media post.
The social media advisor telephoned Amanda Duncan (National Manager Communications and
Engagement) at 12.42pm requesting her assistance at NCC. She arrived to complete the final
review of the post.
The post was requested by Megan Stiffler (Deputy Chief Executive, Operational Response / Deputy
National Commander). Ms Stiffler verbal y approved the post at 12.49pm on 9 January 2026.
d. The relevant policy regarding disabling or closing comments on social media posts,
and any internal communications specifically relating to the decision to close
comments on this post.
There is no policy relating to disabling or closing comments. For this reason, we are refusing this
aspect of your request under section 18(e) of the OIA, as the document al eged to contain the
information does not exist. However, we reserve the right to disable comments when comments
become unmanageable, repeatedly aggressive or dangerous towards the social media team or
connected parties. Ms Duncan gave verbal approval to disable comments at 1.59pm on 9 January
2026.
2. Meetings and external communications
a. Whether any FENZ executives have had any communications with Members of
Parliament regarding the Pakuranga incident in any form. If so, please provide
copies of those communications.
We can advise that members of the Fire and Emergency Executive Leadership Team (ELT) have not
communicated with a Member of Parliament (MP) regarding the Pakuranga incident in any form.
For this reason, 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.
b. Whether any FENZ national executives have met with Members of Parliament in a
personal capacity (e.g. social gatherings or meetings at non-FENZ locations) within
the past three months. If so, please provide the names and dates.
We can advise that members of the ELT have not met with MPs in a personal capacity within the
past three months.
c. Incident report. Please provide the ICAD report F4374653.
Please find attached, as
Appendix Two to this response, a copy of the SMS Incident Report (SMS
Report). Some information has been withheld from the report under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA, to
protect the privacy of natural persons. 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’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 making these 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]
Please note that because of the identified public interest in the information that you have
requested, we intend to publish this response (with your personal details removed) on our
website.
Nāku noa, nā
Aidan Saunders
Manager, Information Requests
