Almost 40 years later, that truck, verging on "vintage", is still responding to fire jobs and acting as the city’s primary back-up when the newer 28-year-old aerial is out of action.
The firefighter's union has slammed the situation as symptomatic of underinvestment, but Fire and Emergency New Zealand has stressed Dunedin will just need to wait until the end of the year for a brand-new aerial appliance.
New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union Otago secretary and Lookout Point firefighter Mike Taylor said while firefighters were carrying out weekly checks on their usual 28-year-old aerial appliance in the yard last Monday, the foot snapped off the bottom of the outrigger.
"Crews had been training on a variety of slopes over recent shifts and believe that this failure could have resulted in serious injury to our crew and could also have impacted its ability to operate at [an] incident," he said.
Since then, firefighters had been relying on the 1987 back-up ladder appliance.
The back-up was so dilapidated it had a "custom-made oil tray" made to catch dripping hydraulic fluid from the ladder.
It was well past its use-by date, Mr Taylor said.
"This is an example of why our national fleet needs to be constantly replaced so that appliances are not being used past their use by date.
"Fenz have a policy of appliance lifespan being 25 years — the most modern aerial in Dunedin is 28 years old while the replacement is nearly 40."
The replacement strategy for aerial appliances, which is managed at a national level, had failed, he said.
Over two years ago, Fenz announced the procurement of five new aerial appliances for New Zealand, one of which would come to Dunedin.
However, Mr Taylor said they still had not seen any new aerials delivered since they were announced, "while the current fleet continues to fail across the country".
Fenz deputy chief executive of organisational strategy and capability development Sarah Sinclair said its fleet nationwide was ageing and it was in the process of implementing a long-term investment plan to replace trucks, as well as investing in maintenance and repairs.
There were five aerial trucks on order, one of which was destined to reach Dunedin at the end of the year, she said.
"Our fleet of trucks are well maintained, safe, certified and legally compliant and we have a robust servicing programme of planned maintenance and repairs."
The national fleet includes 1300 specialist trucks, 29 aerial trucks, and in Otago, there were 119 trucks across the region. Since 2017, 317 trucks had been replaced and another 70 were on order.
"With a fleet this size, we hold some trucks specifically to be able to replace frontline trucks when they are being serviced or repaired ... this ensures regions have the resources they require to respond."
