A potentially catastrophic situation was averted thanks to the hard work and quick thinking of Dunedin firefighters after their back-up truck "sprang a leak" and was rendered unusable while they attempted to fight a blazing house fire.
About 5.40am on December 10, crews from around the city were called to a house fire at a property in Quarry Rd, Green Island.
A Lookout Point crew was the first on the scene and got to work fighting the fire, Senior Firefighter Mike Taylor said.
He said Lookout Point was operating a 29-year-old relief appliance as its front-runner was in the workshop with faulty sensors.
"The relief appliance was the first to arrive, so that was pumping the water.
"Midway through the job, as we were firefighting, the pump sprang a leak."
He said firefighters had to quickly swap the hoses to another truck so they could continue firefighting.
SFF Taylor, who is the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) Dunedin secretary, said it was lucky the firefighters had fought the blaze so hard before the leak started.
"Fortunately, by the time the fault happened, Lookout Point had made pretty significant progress on the firefighting effort, and that the pump operator knew what they were doing — they were able to swap everything out very quickly."
He said the fault demonstrated the "fragility" of Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s fleet.
It could have been a "different scenario" had the fire been bigger.
"You can imagine it could have been pretty catastrophic — we were fortunate it happened when it did."
The two Lookout Point trucks were not the only faulty trucks in the city’s fleet.
SFF Taylor said Dunedin’s main front-running pump had an out-of-action high-pressure system.
"On a fire truck, you’ve got low-pressure deliveries, which deliver a lot more water, and you have high-pressure deliveries, which is quicker to deploy, but don’t deliver as much water.
"That pump had only got low-pressure available, but we can’t swap it out because we’ve got no more spare trucks available."
He said the strain on the system was beginning to show.
"This is part of the reason why we’ll be back striking on Friday at midday."
Assistant Commander Craig Geddes said in a statement the Lookout Point Brigade "experienced a minor issue with its pump yesterday while attending an incident in Green Island".
"A hole in the pump’s high-pressure pump drain hose caused water to spray onto the truck’s muffler, creating steam.
"The pump’s operator quickly identified the issue and crews seamlessly transitioned from using the Lookout Point Brigade’s pump, to the Roslyn Brigade’s pump, which was also in attendance.
"The leak has since been fixed and the pump is once again fully operational.
He said the leak was not a ‘‘maintenance issue,’’ and ‘‘complex equipment issues can arise at any time’’.
SFF Taylor said that statement is true, but never claimed it was a ‘‘maintenance issue’’.
‘‘I'm saying that it's an issue brought on by the fact that they're older appliances, and until we start getting new fleet on board, then we're going to continue having regular failures.
‘‘This happened at incident and meant the pump thad to be replaced while firefighting . . . I mean, you can paint it however you like, but that's what happened.’’
‘‘Our relief appliances, which we were using on that day, was 29 years old . . . that's why it failed.’’
