Nearly 460 have served over the decades

Kaiapoi has one of the oldest volunteer fire brigades in the country.

Retired firefighter Paul Croucher has compiled a book on the Kaiapoi Volunteer Fire Brigade’s 150-year history, which he will present at the brigade’s celebration dinner on March 14.

The brigade was formed at a public meeting on March 9, 1870, called by the Kaiapoi Municipal Board, with 21 volunteers signing up as the town’s first firefighters. Robert Wright was selected as the first superintendent and Captain G. Burnip as assistant superintendent.

George Blackwell was one of the original 21 volunteers and became the third superintendent from 1880.

One of the training procedures for the new brigade involved piling up old wooden beer crates from the White Star Brewery in different locations around the town and setting them alight ‘‘to challenge firemen on how long it would take them to arrive and extinguish the fire’’, Paul says.

‘‘The first recorded fire call was on Sunday, August 31, 1870 at 6.30am when the fire bell gave warning that fire had broken out somewhere in the town,’’ Paul writes. The fire was in a small building at Morrison Scholander Fletcher & Co’s butchery, used for smoking bacon and hams.

A second fire was on November 24, 1870, at Oram’s Pier Hotel during a strong northwest wind. ‘‘The washhouse and store room were well ablaze by the time the brigade arrived and the fire was threatening a nearby shed and the Post Office store.’’

By April 1871, the newly formed Kaiapoi Municipal Council (later borough council) had converted an old harbour shed north of the river, on the corner of what is now Williams and Charles streets, into a fire station, with a bell tower and a recreation room.

Soon after, the town’s fire prevention committee and the council jointly agreed to buy a new Shand Mason steam-engine-powered fire pump from Britain for £598.

The new pump arrived in Lyttelton in March 1874 aboard the Dilharree and was sent to Kaiapoi by train.

When World War 1 broke out in 1914, the brigade’s numbers were depleted when 15 firefighters were called up for service.

Later, the war department seized all horses, so, with public help, the steamer and hand pump were physically pushed to fires until Mr Boniface, the local grain merchant, offered his truck.

In all, four brigade members died in the war.

‘‘After the war, New Zealand was hit by a flu epidemic that in turn swept through Kaiapoi, which kept the brigade busy transporting the sick and dead to a makeshift hospital and morgue in the technical school.’’

Over the last 150 years, 457 members have served with the Kaiapoi Volunteer Fire Brigade, with the longest-serving member being senior firefighter Roy Adams, who completed 50 years last year.