Earlier this year, Taieri MP Ingrid Leary asked in written questions to Parliament about the number of times firefighters in the South had not been able to respond to callouts due to equipment failure and lack of staff.
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden responded saying that information was not recorded.
However, the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) said it received a detailed breakdown after asking the same questions in an Official Information Act (OIA) request.
NZPFU Dunedin secretary Senior Firefighter Mike Taylor questioned why the numbers were not provided to the government.
"If the government are making a policy based on the information they’re getting from Fire and Emergency New Zealand, then they need to be confident that the information they’re getting is accurate ... otherwise, the policy is not necessarily going to be the right one."
The data showed that in the 2024-25 financial year, there were 153 instances when career firefighters in the Southern region could not attend callouts.
It is the highest number since 2017.
Seven incidents in which firefighters could not respond to a callout were listed as K0, which SFF Taylor said meant the truck was "off the run".
"That means that it’s not available for crewing ... that could be for a number of reasons, but often that is because it’s broken down or it’s heading for repair."
This financial year, there were already 65 non-response instances.
However, a Fenz spokesperson said the parliamentary question asked for different information to what it provided for this OIA response.
"The parliamentary question asked that we provide the number of instances fire appliances broke down en route to, or during, emergency responses - we don’t record that information in that specific form, and producing it would require substantial line-by-line manual analysis of incident records.
"The OIA request ... asked that we provide the number of instances an appliance has not been able to respond to a call immediately - rather than en route or during the incident - due to mechanical fault or lack of crewing."
