The six rural fire authorities that take care of the Otago countryside are coming under pressure to amalgamate.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Richard Worth, said this week he "does not intend to progress" the previous government's proposal to amalgamate urban and rural fire services.
However, he will be "encouraging" the country's 80 rural fire authorities to merge into larger structures.
He told the Otago Daily Times yesterday he was keen to see amalgamation "on a voluntary basis".
To make it compulsory would require a Cabinet decision.
"But I actually think the case for amalgamation is so blindingly obvious that, if there is resistance, then I would see that resistance based primarily on self interest - undesirable self interest."
The Department of Conservation and each of Otago's five local authorities - Dunedin City and Clutha, Waitaki, Central Otago and Lakes District Councils - have separate rural fire authorities.
As well, the owners of Otago forests maintain their own firefighting units.
Rural firefighters are almost entirely volunteers and number in the hundreds.
Dr Worth hoped that within a year rural fire authorities would be involved in "active discussion" to see whether they accepted there were benefits in amalgamation.
Southland's Southern Rural Fire District, formed in 2003, is seen as a model for a new-look rural fire service.
That amalgamation brought together the rural fire services of the Southland and Gore District Councils, the Invercargill City Council, the Southern Plantations Rural Fire District and the Department of Conservation.
The one organisation now provides fire services across three million hectares of land in Southland.
Its principal fire officer, Mike Grant, considered amalgamation had brought many advantages.
"First up, you address a lot of duplication. In a lot of cases, resources were sitting side-by-side in the same town.
"So you ended up with a lot of duplication of trucks and people and pumps and hoses, and everything else that you've got."
Amalgamation had also brought consistency in the way fire permits were issued.
"All the different agencies have their own policies, they have their own procedures, they have their own requirements when they put their fire permits together."
Mr Grant said there had been considerable financial savings for the "stakeholders".
"We've been getting a hugely better service to the communities out there, at the same cost that all the individual stakeholders were putting in before."
He believed senior management and local government politicians needed to understand the benefits of amalgamation and get behind it.
The National Rural Fire Authority provides a Dunedin-based co-ordinator for the region south of the Rangitata River.
The manager of Rural Fire Southern, Russell Barclay, said part of his job was to ensure authorities were communicating with each other.
"I'm trying to help them out so they can talk to each other and perhaps come together as a group."
However, Mr Barclay considered amalgamation was "one of those things that can't be rushed".
While there was already a high level of co-operation between Otago's rural fire authorities, amalgamation had been strongly resisted in other regions, he said.
"They have quite a bit of trouble in the North Island. People just don't want to do it, full stop. But most of our ones in the South Island are reasonably happy to think about it, anyway."
Mr Barclay said a "combined base" would help the four main forestry companies in Otago but they would need to come to an agreement about how tooperate under an amalgamation.
