The Arrowtown vollies responded to a record 295 callouts in 2024, up 64 from 2023.
Arrowtown fire chief Murray Forward says they included 140 medical calls — Arrowtown’s a designated medical first-response team — up from 100 the year prior.
"Last year, the use of helicopters made a big difference," he says.
"While we are first responders and handle everything until the helicopters get there, they are very proficient crews and have been great to work with."
Frankton Volunteer Fire Brigade also had an increase in callouts last year, attending a total of 271, up from 244 in 2023. Of those, 109 were alarm activations, and 68 were car crashes.
Meantime, the Queenstown volunteer brigade responded to a total of 466 callouts in 2024, down from almost 500 in 2023.
Queenstown chief fire officer Terry O’Connell says that’s "not a bad thing".
O’Connell says 202 were classed as structural fire calls and 84 were fire alarm activations.
"The context of a structural callout is when a smoke detector goes off, alerting the brigade, but there’s not necessarily a fire," he says. Despite some calls being false alarms, O’Connell says that’s not a bother.
He says by far the biggest event crews attended last year was a crash between a tour bus and two cars on State Highway 6, near Kingston, on December 19, which killed Timothy Peter Herrick, 36, of Invercargill, and injured 20 others.
It resulted in a mass rapid response, involving about 50 of the district’s first responders.
The crash saw a rapid response from all emergency services with about 50 of the district’s first responders working together.
"The response our crews were able to provide tells me that our emergency services are alive and well," O’Connell says.
"I think the Whakatipu can rest assured, and be very proud of what they’ve got."
